


What Doesn't Kill You

by TheNarator



Series: Fractals [2]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Age Difference, And no one dies, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brotp: Quickvibe, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Statutory Rape, Unhealthy Relationships, a story about the flash vibe and jesse quick being heroes is not canon compliant, and they all get credit for their heroics, in my version they're all heroes, past harrick, that's actually acknowledged as statutory rape imagine that, the people who actually caused the problems get blamed for them, which just goes to show you how fucked up canon is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-03-13
Packaged: 2018-05-22 00:01:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6063057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNarator/pseuds/TheNarator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, but that doesn't stop it leaving scars.</p>
<p>The one where Vibe defeats Zoom to stop the painful visions he gets of Zoom's crimes. When that doesn't work he turns to Harrison Wells for help, but finds an even more dangerous enemy hidden in plain sight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. All In Your Head

The first time it had happened, Cisco had thought he was going crazy.

He hadn't passed out for very long, in fact he'd been able to catch himself before he hit the ground, but it had still been horrible even without face-planting onto the tile floor. There was a blinding pain behind his eyes and a terrifying construction in his chest and suddenly he was somewhere else, in a blue-lit world watching a woman be murdered by a man made of sand.

As soon as it was over he gone straight home and went to bed, telling himself that it had just been a particularly severe headache causing random neurons in his brain to fire aimlessly and forcing his conscious mind to try and make sense of them. It felt too real to be a dream though, and by the time he woke up he had convinced himself that it was a hallucination enough to be looking up where to get the best mental healthcare for less than his life was worth when the TV announced breaking news.

A woman had been found dead, sand in every orifice and its presence the apparent cause of death. Further investigation revealed the killer to be one of the people with impossible abilities that had started cropping up in the wake of the particle accelerator launch. A metahuman. Sand Demon.

And Cisco had seen the attack before it happened.

The visions came more frequently after that. He saw metahumans hurting and killing people, using their powers selfishly to do terrible things. He saw metas hurt and killed by their own powers, their deaths presumed accidents or murders by some unknown metahuman criminal who would never be found. He saw metas lose control, do things they hadn't meant to, hurt people by mistake and then pay the price for it. The trigger didn't seem to just be using their powers -- he didn't get a vision every time the Flash ran the length of the city -- but doing so when emotions were running rampant. When the stakes were at their highest. When there were consequences.

He had to keep his powers secret of course, there were a lot of anti-metahuman sentiments in Central City, so he quickly developed a reputation for getting severe migraines. Accepting people's pity and concern when he wasn't actually _sick_ did make him feel like something of a fraud, but there was nothing to do but push away the handful of classmates he'd have liked to call friends and ride out the visions -- or "vibes" as he started to call them -- on his own.

The vibes about Zoom were the worst.

Zoom never seemed to use his powers for anything _besides_ killing people, so visions of him were always intensely painful. They almost always knocked Cisco out, and he'd wake up on the floor up to a full hour after the last time he'd checked. He usually ended up vomiting afterward so he took to leaving buckets around his house, and he always had a pair of sunglasses on hand to combat the sensitivity to light that only visions of Zoom ever seemed to cause. He fiddled around with the glasses a little to see if they could help in other ways; he'd never had a vibe in his sleep, so he tried rigging them to emit a low-level delta wave. It did help, but it didn't stop the vibes from coming. Only one thing could do that.

Once a metahuman criminal was in prison, Cisco stopped getting vibes about them. If they were somewhere they couldn't use their powers to hurt anyone his dark-matter-addled mind just seemed to lose interest. It was for this reason that Cisco liked getting visions of the Flash. They still hurt, obviously, but the Flash was never over-emotional when using his powers except when he was flushed with victory, so a vibe about him usually meant fewer vibes to come in the future. It was the closest thing to actually _relief_ that he had, and it was more than enough to make Cisco want to do anything he could for the guy.

There wasn't much to be done, but working with the Central City Police Department was one thing he _could_ do. "Science Consultant" was a strange title and hiring a 17 year old still in college for a sort of pseudo-internship certainly caused some raised eyebrows, but the Anti-Metahuman Task Force were willing to take just about any edge they could get. Cisco's talent for compiling a list of dangerous metas and "potential" metas based on only the smallest bits of evidence was much appreciated, and his ideas about containment cells for some of the trickier metahuman prisoners even more so. He tried to keep the cops off the trail of the kids who were just trying to get by without using their powers at all, but he always filed their abilities under "hypothetical scenarios" and made sure that the task force were at least _prepared_ to deal with them. It wasn't much, but it was something.

During one of his visions about Zoom, he discovered he might be able to do more.

It was the first time he'd ever had a vibe about that particular meta while already wearing his shades -- or Vibe Goggles as he'd come to call them -- and contrary to expectation they'd somehow managed to keep him awake. He pushed back against the vibe, trying to pull himself out of that blue-lit world and back into the real one, and somehow the vibe had changed. Suddenly he was no longer watching a woman being murdered, but a vision of himself -- dressed as what he could only describe as a superhero -- shooting some kind of vibration blast out of his hand that knocked Zoom off his feet. Zoom struggled back up, stumbling drunkenly, then turned and fled no faster than an ordinary person could run. He had no powers.

Cisco -- or rather, Vibe -- immediately set to work. It took him a while to figure out how to access his powers and how they worked, but after a month or two's training outside the city limits he had a pretty firm grip on his abilities. He was already designing containment cells for Iron Heights, so it wasn't hard to suggest that they build an anti-speedster cell in case the Flash ever beat Zoom. He designed it and oversaw its construction, and in a few short weeks Iron Heights was equipped to hold a speedster.

Now all he had to do was catch one.

***

The fight went exactly as he had foreseen, but then again all of his visions did. Hanging around in dark alleys waiting to ambush unsuspecting speed demons was not a pleasant hobby, least of all for three weeks straight, but eventually Vibe managed to stumble upon Zoom. Or rather, Zoom managed to stumble upon him.

Hitting something going just under the speed of sound head-on was a little difficult, so the first blast was more of an attention-getter than anything.

" **Another little hero** ," Zoom concluded once he caught sight of Vibe. " **Unfortunately I have no use for you, so I suppose this is goodbye.** "

Vibe had been treated to a few visions of exactly what Zoom's "use" for the Flash was, but thankfully those plans would never come to fruition. Rather than answering he released his second blast, which hit Zoom full in the chest but only manage to knock him back one stumbling step.

" **You think you can defeat me with a power like that?** " Zoom asked, clearly amused.

Vibe shrugged. "Why don't you tell me?"

It took Zoom a few steps to realize that something was off. He stopped short, staring in bewilderment at his own clawed hands, then turned his glare on Vibe.

" **What have you done?** " he demanded.

"Well I _think_ I've shut off your powers," Vibe mocked, deciding he might as well have a little fun with this. "Not sure if that counts as defeating you though; let me try again."

The next blast knocked Zoom flat on his back, as Vibe had known it would. He waited patiently for Zoom to stagger back to his feet, then when the speed demon turned to flee Vibe gave chase.

One thing his vision _hadn't_ told him was how many people would still be out on the street, but most of them gave Zoom a wide berth no matter how fast he was going and so the way was relatively clear for Vibe to let loose another blast. The speedster fell to his knees, giving Vibe plenty of opportunity to run up behind him and knock him out with a sharp blow to the back of the head.

Despite the late hour there were enough people in the crowd to necessitate a light ripple vibration around his person for Vibe to escape unmolested. He'd expected to have to call this in himself, but three people were on the phone with the station by the time he was five feet from Zoom's unconscious form, and the rest were all clamoring for his name. His goggles hid his face and he only told them all to call him Vibe, but he still felt terribly exposed, and that feeling of vulnerability didn't ebb until he'd reached his apartment. At that point though, it was replaced by giddy relief.

Zoom was gone, behind bars and unable to hurt anyone. There would be no more vibes about him. The worst of his visions were behind him.

The moment Cisco took off his goggles, the most intense vibe he'd ever experienced knocked him completely unconscious.

It was another one of Sand Demon, ironically, and the vision merged with his dreams to give him terrible nightmares. When he woke up the next morning there was vomit in his mouth, and he couldn't tell if the pounding in his head was as a result of the vibe or of banging his head on the floor when he fell. He spit up a bit more into the nearest bucket, then curled into a ball and lay there crying for several hours.

Eventually he found the energy to get off the floor and clean himself up, then went to the kitchen and force himself to eat. He didn't turn on the news, didn't want to hear about how the city was celebrating a victory that had done him no good whatsoever. In fact it might even be a bad thing, this might be just how all his vibes would be from now on, and that thought was enough to make him start sobbing into his cereal.

Then, it started to make him angry.

Cisco didn't really understand why Central City worshiped Harrison Wells. It was pretty obvious to him that the particle accelerator had created the metahumans, but Wells was a powerful enough man to have avoided the consequences of that, so there was really no point in hating him either. The Flash seemed to disagree, but Cisco wasn't under the impression that telling everyone what they ought to have worked out on their own was going to change anything. If they were going to acknowledge it they would have done so by now.

The more he thought about it though, the more that idea started to make him want to puke up what he'd managed to choke down. Dr. Wells had done this to him, was responsible for Cisco's powers and the powers of every meta he'd ever vibed on. It wasn't the intensity of the darkness in Zoom's heart making his visions unbearable but the visions themselves, and those could not be blamed on any speedster. It was Dr. Wells, not Zoom or any other supervillain, that had been terrorizing Central City the last few years.

Still, there was a reason the Flash had gone to Wells for help. Wells had created the metahumans and he knew more about them than anyone else, enough to make a device that could detect their presence. If anyone could get rid of Cisco's visions, make a cure for any meta, it was Wells. Cisco would confront him, would tell him to make something that would take away his powers, and then Cisco would have his life back.

And if he couldn't have that, then he _would_ have justice. For himself and all of Central City.

***

It was surprisingly easy to break into STAR Labs. The security system was best described as rudimentary, and it was no match for Cisco, powers or no powers. It was dark by the time he was ready, and he might have waited for tomorrow if Dr. Wells hadn't had such a reputation for being devoted to his lab. He threw together a device to get him past the metahuman detectors, and decided that when this was over he would make more and distribute them to every meta he had seen just trying to get by. Cloakpins, he could call them.

Harrison Wells was indeed working late, looking over something by the light of his desk lamp, and he didn't even look up when Vibe entered and closed the door behind himself.

"Good evening Dr. Wells," Vibe said, and Wells jumped, looking around wildly for the source of the noise. Cisco stepped out of the shadows at the back of the room, placing himself in the ring of light from the lamp so that Wells could see him.

"You," Wells breathed, eyes wide.

"Me," Vibe said simply. “We need to talk-”

“Look at you,” Wells cut him off, coming around the desk to approach him, then, “aren’t you just . . . marvelous.”

"Excuse me?" Cisco asked, bewildered.

Dr. Wells was actually smiling, as though pleased to see an intruder in his lab. “Cisco Ramon in the flesh,” he said with excitement, grinning as he looked Cisco up and down.

“You know my name?” Cisco asked, trying to keep the fear out of his voice and not quite succeeding.

“Of course,” Wells said delightedly. “All of Central City is raving about you.

“ _Everyone_ knows my name?” Cisco demanded as his heart rate kicked into high gear. He might have admired the Flash, but he was _not_ ready for a full-time superhero gig.

“No no,” Wells waved that away, “I took the handful of hastily snapped pictures and eyewitness sketches and ran them through STAR Labs facial recognition software. It didn’t take me long to find you. Don't worry, your secret's safe with me.”

“Um, thanks?” Cisco tried. He wasn't really sure what he was supposed to say to that.

“I’ve seen your work with the CCPD,” Wells continued before he could say anything else, “the cells you designed for Iron Heights. Your work is inspired; I can only imagine what you’d do with a proper lab and some real resources.”

Cisco shrugged. “It needed doing.”

“And so you did it for peanuts,” Wells finished disapprovingly. “You’ve been taken advantage of, Mr. Ramon.”

“I wasn’t going to hold the city hostage for a six figure salary,” Cisco argued, "like you did with those Awareness Apps! You’re not willing to help solve the problem, but you’re more than happy to profit off people’s fear!”

“Yes, how did you get past the detector?” Wells wanted to know. “You’re obviously a metahuman, you should have tripped the alarm.”

“I built something to jam the sensor,” Cisco explained dismissively.

Wells shook his head, absolutely beaming.“You are truly remarkable Cisco.”

It felt almost shameful to admit it, even to himself, but being praised by Dr. Harrison Wells felt good. Rarely was he told that he'd even done a good job with his work, and being acknowledged by a man like Dr. Wells made pleasure curl warm and welcome in his belly.

Cisco shook himself. He'd lost control of this. He still had a purpose for being here. “I came here for a reason,” he said firmly, “I need your help.”

“What do you need, Cisco?” Wells asked, all sincerity and concern.

There was no point beating around the bush. “I need you to make something that can take away my powers."

“Why would you want to get rid of your abilities?” Wells frowned. “You’re the hero of Central City. Even the Flash would cower before you.”

“Why would anyone besides a criminal would want to fight the Flash?” Cisco asked.

“Why do you want to give up your powers?” Wells countered.

Cisco hesitated. He'd meant to just come in and demand a cure, but Wells was being so damn _nice_ that Cisco felt he owed him an explanation.

“It’s not just the vibration blasts,” he said cautiously. “I get . . . visions, whenever another meta uses their powers. They . . . hurt.”

“Your headaches,” Wells realized, looking grim.

Cisco nodded. It was a little disconcerting that Wells knew even that about him, but he was uncomfortable enough already that a small thing like that seemed insignificant.

“Oh you poor thing,” Wells crooned, and suddenly he was stepping forward directly into Cisco's personally space, reaching out both hands toward his head. Cisco leaned back to avoid him, and at the first brush of fingertips on his temples he jerked away in alarm. "Sh sh," Wells gentled, and when Cisco stilled he softly, very softly, began to stroke the younger man's hair, his other hand sliding down to cup Cisco's cheek, tilting his face upward.

It felt . . . nice, being petted like this. Looking up at Wells he felt suddenly very small, like a child being caressed by a mother, although his own mother had never been this gentle. In the dim illumination from the lamp Wells' eyes sparkled with light and warmth.

“So brave,” Wells continued softly, and the fingers stroking Cisco's hair touched the edge of his goggles.

“No!” Cisco cried, pulling immediately out of Wells' hold. “Don't. They . . . help.”

“Show me,” Wells instructed, and after a moment's hesitation Cisco removed the goggles and handed them over. It was strangely nerve-wracking watching Wells examine them; he had praised Cisco's other work so highly that the idea he might find this invention sub-par made him anxious. “What do they emit?” Wells asked after studying them for only a few seconds.

“A low-level delta wave,” Cisco answered.

“Doesn’t that make you drowsy?” Wells asked.

“Drowsy’s better than in pain,” Cisco pointed out.

Wells replaced the goggles on Cisco's nose, then took the younger man's face in his hands again. “You’ve been so strong, Cisco,” he said softly, voice full of something like reverence, “to have lived with this as long as you have. To have gone up against an opponent as powerful as Zoom in this state is. . . incredible.”

“So, you’ll help me?” Cisco asked.

Wells pursed his lips and pulled away, and as he retreated toward his desk Cisco felt oddly bereft, like the room had somehow grown colder.

“It will take some time,” he said, leaning against his desk. “It won’t be easy; I’ll have to take myself away from other projects.”

“You mean you won’t do it?” Cisco asked warily.

Well considered him for a moment. “Why don’t we make a deal?” he suggested. “I’ll work on a cure for you, and in exchange you’ll come work for me.”

“I’m still in college," Cisco protested.

Wells shrugged. “It’s my lab, I can hire who I want. I’m sure your school would be happy to call it work-study.”

“I already have a job,” Cisco pointed out. “It’s important work.”

“You can still design containment cells,” Wells conceded. “I’ve been thinking of getting a contract with the CCPD for some time; with the resources I have here you can build all kinds of anti-metahuman technology.”

Cisco hesitated for another moment, but he had nothing to lose. Wells wasn't asking him to do anything unethical or unpleasant; there was no reason to say no, and he didn't want to give up this chance. “OK,” he said at last. “Deal.”

Wells held out a hand and Cisco reached out to take it, but at the last second Wells pulled it back. “One more thing,” he added. “No more of those devices that can counteract the Awareness Apps. Deal?”

“D-deal," Cisco replied, and they shook hands.


	2. Little Hero

“I know you Cisco!” screamed Hartley’s voice from the back the police car. “You’ve never been one to let injustice stand, are you really going to let Wells get away with what he did to us?”

Cisco didn’t know how to answer him, and in a few moments Hartley’s voice was cut off by the car door slamming shut in his face. It was strange and a little heartbreaking, watching his ex-boyfriend get hauled off to jail, but Hartley had never been the most stable of people and they had broken up for a reason. Hartley was a dick, and he’d pulled a lot of dick moves, the most recent of which was trying to kill Harrison.

He wasn’t really sure when he’d gone from “Dr. Wells” to “Harrison,” but he had the idea that it was somewhere around the time that the man started paying for him to live in a roomy apartment on the more upscale side of town. He’d never even seen a bill for the place, and he had no clue what he was being charged for utilities. He tried to do little thing like keep the heat turned down, things he would have done in his old apartment, but eventually Harrison had called Cisco up to his office and demanded to know why he wasn’t taking care of himself. After that conversation the thermostat always seem to mysteriously reset to 72 degrees, no matter how many times Cisco tried to change it.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t have afforded a nicer apartment by himself, his job at STAR Labs having more than doubled his disposable income, but Harrison was just so determined to take care of everything that it was easier to just let him have his way. Cisco _was_ still underage, so it wasn’t like it was unusual for someone else to be paying his living expenses, but he had the vague idea that it was a little odd for his boss to be putting him up indefinitely without even docking his salary. The investment he represented to STAR Labs might explain his sudden lack of any student loan debt or bills from the college, but having groceries delivered to him every week seemed to be going a bit far.

That might be because of the whole superhero thing though.

Cisco had meant for Vibe to immediately retire after defeating Zoom, but that victory hadn’t done what it was meant to and Central City was still a dangerous place. Harrison had gathered a lot of data on metahumans while creating his Awareness Apps, and this made it clearer than ever that the Flash was in over his head. He had defended the city for years, but there were just too many evil metas for him to deal with alone.

“The city needs you,” Harrison told him softly, one evening when they were working late in his office.

“They have the Flash,” Cisco reasoned.

“The Flash is a coward,” Harrison spat, but at Cisco’s startled look his hard expression softened. “He’s not as brave as he was in the beginning,” he amended. “He’s been through a lot; it’s understandable. You, though, you had no choice besides courage. You have it in spades. The city needs that courage.”

And so Vibe came out of retirement.

There was a strange sort of opposition between Vibe and the Flash. They were on the same side, obviously, but by the nature of their powers it was impractical for them to fight together, so they mostly tried to stay out of each other’s way. Everyone knew the Flash’s real name, but he didn’t cultivate a public persona; he just was who he was, all of the time, whether in costume or out of it. Vibe, on the  other hand, preferred to keep his identity a secret, even while giving statements to the press.

“Is it true that you’re in the employ of STAR Labs?” asked one reporter, having not so much approached as cornered him after a fight.

“I'm here because of Dr. Wells,” Vibe told her simply. “I wouldn’t be who I am without him.”

It was, after all, only the truth, although he didn’t see why the entire city needed to know. He didn't even know where she'd gotten the idea, unless . . .

“Of course I fed them that information,” Harrison said dismissively when Cisco confronted him about it. At Cisco’s surprised look, though, he frowned. “Most people would be proud to work for this company.”

Cisco looked down, feeling suddenly childish, but Harrison gripped his chin and made the younger man look up at him. “I’m sorry,” Harrison whispered sincerely, his eyes troubled.

“It’s not important,” Cisco assured him quickly. The subject didn’t come up again.

The press didn’t exactly go away though; Central City was obsessed with its new hero and dying for any information they could get. The media always seemed to know where he would be when he went out as Vibe, and the sheer number of his fights that ended up on the six o’clock news meant that suddenly there was more documentation of Vibe’s first two months as a superhero than of the Flash’s first two years.

“It’s only natural they want to know about you,” Harrison laughed, brushing Cisco’s hair out his face lazily, “you’re the hot new thing. The Flash is yesterday’s news.”

“The Flash has done a lot for this city,” Cisco protested.

“And they know and love him for it,” Harrison finished for him. “Now they want to know how to love you.”

He ran his fingers through Cisco’s hair again, his expression fond. “We all love you.”

“They love Vibe,” Cisco corrected.

“You _are_ Vibe,” Harrison reminded him, smiling as he pressed a kiss to Cisco’s forehead. “Never forget, you’re the one they love.”

Cisco wasn’t Vibe though. Once Harrison finished making the cure his powers would be gone, and without them Vibe would disappear. Central City would still have the Flash though, and that thought gave Cisco comfort, even as his own superhero work became increasingly difficult while coping with his visions. They were getting worse, and the Vibe Goggles didn't seem to be helping anymore, even after Harrison had made some adjustments of his own. They weren't as frequent, granted, but what they lacked in quantity they made up for in intensity, and more than once Cisco ended up on the bathroom floor with Harrison holding his hair back as he puked and sobbed into a toilet.

“How much longer until you can fix this?” Cisco asked desperately, sniffling as the last of the nausea settled.

“I’m getting close,” Harrison assured him gently, his fingers massaging the pounding in Cisco’s head down to a dull throb. “Every day, a little closer to a cure."

“I don’t know if I can keep doing this,” Cisco confessed shakily.

There was a pause, and when Harrison spoke again his voice was harder. “But you will do it,” he said, somewhere between a question and a command, his fingers digging more forcefully into the tender skin of Cisco’s scalp. “For me, you’ll keep doing it.”

“Of course,” Cisco said hurriedly, nodding. “For you.”

“That's my little hero.”

The name 'little hero' never failed to make him shiver. The first time Harrison had called him that Cisco had been forcibly reminded of Zoom, but since then the term had taken on a new meaning. It had come to be an indication of Harrison's affection, and expression of the particular fondness he had only for Cisco. He had taken it back from Zoom, and now it was _theirs._

Facing Hartley -- or rather, Pied Piper -- hadn't been easy. He had returned to Central City to seek revenge on Harrison for some unspecified offense, and for some reason he thought that Cisco would take his side. Piper was more of a threat than most of the supervillains he faced; he knew Cisco's abilities well enough to model his weapons after them, and what was more he knew Cisco's real name, which was a precious secret if Vibe was to ever retire in peace. As was usually the case though, Harrison swooped in to fix everything. He told the press that Pied Piper was obsessed with Vibe and had deluded himself into thinking they had once been in a relationship; when Hartley started spouting the same story Harrison had said he would, the media simply lost interest.

That didn't make calling Hartley crazy sit any better with Cisco, but he swallowed his misgivings as he made his way up to Harrison's office.

***

It was late evening, and most of the staff had gone home by the time Cisco knocked on the door frame of Harrison's open office door.

"Ah," Harrison called, beckoning him inside, "there you are. Well, we've had a trying day haven't we?"

"I suppose," Cisco replied noncommittally as he entered. He wasn't sure whether he was supposed to be upset about the death threats or indifferent to Hartley's attempts at persuasion, so he made his voice toneless and schooled his features into a lack of any expression.

"You did very well today," Harrison praised, and that alone was enough to send a little thrill of pleasure racing through him. "I'm proud of you."

"I couldn't have let him hurt you," Cisco assured him as Harrison came around the desk.

Harrison smiled as he made his way to the middle of the room to stand before Cisco. "Have you had any visions today?" he asked, plucking the Vibe Goggles from Cisco's face and tossing them carelessly onto the nearby sofa.

Cisco shook his head. "Pied Piper wasn't a metahuman, so there were no powers to trigger one."

"Excellent," Harrison said, taking Cisco's face in his hands. "Why don't we keep it that way?" he asked, then gently brushed his lips against Cisco's.

The kiss quickly became more demanding, and Cisco let his mouth go slack, letting Harrison guide him. Harrison always took the lead with these things, so there was no point trying to push back; Cisco simply let the older man have his way, let his years of experience dictate the pace.

"Today can't have been easy for you," Harrison noted when he pulled back. "Your dopamine levels must be critically low. Manipulating those will help control your visions."

"Better than melatonin," Cisco agreed. "Have you considered utilizing dopamine receptors for the cure-"

"Let's try this for now," Harrison interrupted, by which he meant that he wanted Cisco to stop talking.

Cisco complied, then let himself be towed behind the desk and pressed up against it. This time Harrison's lips trailed down to his neck, but Cisco shivered and pulled in his head like a turtle, blocking access to the sensitive skin. In response a hand worked into his hair, then tightened on the long strands and tugged, forcing his head back.

"You were so good today," Harrison told him in a low voice, "so helpful. You'll be good while I help you now, won't you?"

"Yes," Cisco answered, unable to nod with his neck pulled taut.

"Wonderful," Harrison concluded, then went back to working on Cisco's neck, lavishing attention there until the boy beneath him stopped squirming.

Eventually Harrison drew back, taking in the sight of Cisco tightly wound and leaning backwards over the desk, gripping the edge as though to hold himself together. "Lovely," Harrison observed, "you're beautiful like this sweet boy, simply beautiful."

Cisco shivered at the compliment, pride glowing in his chest and pleasure rolling in his belly. He was already trembling with anticipation as Harrison divested him of his jacket and then resumed kissing him, one hand carding through his hair and the other sliding down his chest. The button on his corduroys popped open and his zipper was pulled down, and then a hand cupped him through his boxers.

Cisco's hips bucked of their own accord, and immediately he froze in place. Harrison didn't like it when Cisco rutted up against him and Cisco waited for the reprimand, but Harrison just laughed softly, pressing his hips against Cisco's until the boy could feel the answering hardness through his slacks.

"Eager?" Harrison asked, the words landing on Cisco's mouth.

"Please," Cisco whined, "please I need-"

"I know what you need, sweet boy," Harrison assured him. "When have I ever not given it to you?"

"Never," Cisco replied breathlessly, "never."

"Then trust me," Harrison ordered. "Let me take care of you."

Cisco put up no resistance as he was turned around and a hand between his shoulder blades pushed him down onto the desk. He braced himself on his elbows, pressing his forehead to the smooth, cold surface as behind him Harrison nudged his legs apart and pulled down his corduroys.

The sound of a desk drawer opening and closing could only mean one thing, and sure enough within moments slick fingers were sliding inside him. Cisco whined, fingertips scrabbling uselessly at the desktop as he tried to keep still, tried not to let his hips thrust back against the intrusion. Harrison's fingers were long and clever, easily seeking out the places that made him gasp and pant, stroking them with enough force to tease but not enough to satisfy.

Harrison always took his time with this part, opening Cisco up so thoroughly that by the end he was begging for Harrison to just hurry up and take him. Harrison swore it was because he was afraid of hurting Cisco, but Cisco had long suspected that Harrison liked to watch him squirm and plead. Cisco knew that giving in would only encourage him, so he bit his lip to keep quiet as Harrison continued to play his body like an instrument.

Of course, denying Harrison was not without its risks.

"You're doing it again," Harrison reprimanded, using his free hand to push Cisco's hair up off his neck.

"Doing . . . w-what?" Cisco stammered, fighting the urge to writhe as Harrison kissed along the sensitive hairline.

"Holding back," Harrison elaborated, and he crooked his fingers expertly so that Cisco let out a high, choked noise in his throat. "I told you, if I'm going to do this for you then I expect you to give me _everything_ in return."

"Please," Cisco whined, unable to stop himself pushing back onto Harrison's fingers. "Please, I need you, just tell me what you want me to say."

Harrison removed his fingers and Cisco felt unbearably empty from the loss, but after a few moments and the sound of rustling fabric he felt the blunt head of Harrison's cock pressing teasingly against his hole.

"What do you want?" Harrison asked in a dark whisper.

"I want you," Cisco replied breathlessly.

"Be more specific."

"I want you to fuck me," Cisco clarified, squeezing his eyes shut tight as he tried not to just thrust back, fuck himself on Harrison's cock.

He was rewarded for his restraint when Harrison pressed in that first inch, but it wasn't nearly enough.

"Why am I doing this?" Harrison continued.

"Because it will help," Cisco panted. "Because it will make me better."

"Yes," Harrison confirmed, "but why am _I_ doing it?"

Cisco swallowed, knowing what Harrison wanted to hear. "Because I need you."

"That's right, sweet boy," Harrison crooned, and that alone was enough to send another spike of pleasure down Cisco's spine. "Only I can do this for you. _I'm_ the one you need. _Me_."

"Yes," Cisco whined, sobbed, pleaded, "yes, I need you, only you, always you-"

His reward this time was a sharp thrust that brought Harrison's hips flush with his own, burying the older man's cock inside him.

For all the time the preparation took, the actual sex was usually hard and fast, and tonight was no exception. Harrison fucked him roughly, his hands braced on top of Cisco's to hold him down, whispering a steady stream of praise and endearments into his ears. Cisco did his best to take it, to ignore the pain and focus on the pleasure, but the mix was so even that there was no way he could come like this without touching himself.

"You're so perfect like this," Harrison growled next to his ear. "All spread out and desperate for me, just for me."

"Please," Cisco gasped, "I need-"

"I know what you need," Harrison repeated. "You need me, don't you? You need me because you're mine, my Vibe, my little hero, always, always _mine_."

"Yours," Cisco nodded hurriedly, turning his head to the side to accommodate the action. "Yes, always yours, but please-"

The only answer he received was Harrison freeing one of his trapped hands, which Cisco immediately used to reach down and stroke his own neglected cock.

"Come for me, little hero," Harrison commanded. "Come while I'm fucking you and say my name."

Cisco did say his name, in a choked off gasp as he spilled himself onto the floor under the desk. Harrison fucked him through it, fucked him until the discomfort of over-stimulation was almost unbearable, before bringing their hips flush together again and finishing inside him.

"Sweet boy," Harrison whispered once they'd both caught their breath, kissing Cisco's sweaty neck. "You did so well my little hero, always so good for me."

Cisco could only nod, unable to find words to answer him.

"Did I hurt you?" Harrison asked. "I know that was rough-"

"No," Cisco lied. He was extremely sore and didn't really want to move, but the desk was uncomfortable now and the pain would be gone by morning. He'd learned early on that Harrison only wanted to know about it if he'd drawn blood.

"Good," Harrison pronounced, standing up and sliding free of Cisco to tuck himself away and do up his slacks, while Cisco was left to pull up his pants and then clean himself up when he got home. "You have another busy day ahead of you tomorrow."

Cisco frowned and turned to face him. "What's happening tomorrow?"

Harrison grinned, pressing a quick to Cisco's lips. "I need you to do something for me."


	3. Alone

Jealousy was not something that the Flash had time for.

Jay had never sought out the praise and attention that came with being the Flash, but he had to admit that it felt good. It was nice to feel so appreciated, to have his work so highly valued; he'd never gotten this kind of worshipful adoration when he'd been trying to purify heavy water without residual radiation. The whole city loved him. They applauded when he entered a room. There were _statues_ of him. It was nice, being their hero.

It became less nice when he'd finally realized his complete inability to stop Zoom, because it meant that he was letting those people down. They believed in him and he had failed, but the only thing to do was keep trying and hope that he would one day be fast enough to save everyone. He'd pushed himself to his limits and found that it still wasn't enough, and his one attempt to seek help -- painful as it had been -- was thrown back in his face. He had been at a complete loss for what to do next, in a state of miserable desperation, when suddenly the problem had been removed entirely, by a single metahuman kid no one had ever heard of. Another superhero. Vibe.

It was only rational, he told himself, to feel that it was a bit anticlimactic. He'd spent two years hunting Zoom, and to have a rival of that magnitude taken out by someone else entirely was a little disappointing. It was a good thing, obviously it was a good thing, and it wasn't as if all the work he'd put into getting faster was some kind of waste of time now. There were still supervillains to fight, plenty of them to go around, and people who needed saving.

The defeat of Zoom was by no means the end of Vibe's super-career though. After a brief period of dormancy suddenly he was everywhere, taking on villains twice his age and experience, winning battle after battle and saving countless people. He had saved Central City once and he was going to do it again, one supervillain at a time, and people loved him for it. Wherever he was the press always seemed to be right behind, and barely a week went by when Vibe didn't make it into the news in some capacity or other. He was doing good and he was getting credit for it, as was his due for risking life and limb to protect the city.

There was just something . . . off, about him.

As soon as that thought occurred to Jay he squashed it down. Zoom might be gone but the city still had a lot of dangers its people needed protection from, and this wasn't the time or place to let jealousy make him unnecessarily suspicious. Having another superhero in his city would take some getting used to, but he told himself that in a few months he wouldn't even remember why he'd ever doubted this kid.

A little over a month in though, and he was beginning to question that conclusion.

The more he saw of the kid the more something didn't seem right. There was nothing _fun_ about squaring off against superpowered criminals, but the kid didn't seem confident in his abilities; he looked almost scared, and he never seemed to look any less scared once he'd defeated his opponent, like he was equally frightened of the cameras in his face. He reminded Jay of nothing so much as a caged animal, acting out of desperation and not by choice.

He tried to tell himself that it was nothing, that he was imagining it, but the more he thought about it the more real worry began gnawing away at him. What if there really was something off about the kid? What if Jay wasn't being paranoid and something was really wrong? There was no evidence to support that theory though, and Jay was a scientist; until he had something besides a gut feeling he wasn't going to go running in half cocked.

Then, something more than Jay's gut feeling turned up in the news.

“I'm here because of Dr. Wells,” Vibe told a reporter nervously, and Jay's blood went cold. “I wouldn’t be who I am without him.”

So _that_ was what was off about the kid. He was working for Wells.

Or rather, Wells was _using_ him.

Jay knew better than anyone there was no such thing as an equal partnership with Harrison Wells. The kid might think there was, might think that whatever relationship they had was mutually beneficial, but Jay knew that no metahuman ability would tip the balance of power in this kid's favor. Suddenly it all made sense: the frightened looks, the suspiciously well-informed media, even the secret identity that Jay had so determinedly refused to judge him for.

Vibe didn't want to be a superhero; somehow, he was being coerced.

Still, Jay's personal knowledge of Wells' character wasn't proof of anything. He had flat out told the entire city that the particle accelerator had created the metahumans and no one had batted an eye; there was no way some vague story about Wells manipulating Vibe was going to achieve anything. He needed more. He needed to talk to Vibe.

It was easier said than done, getting the kid alone for a private word. His secret identity made it impossible to just look him up in the yellow pages, and while he wasn't in costume Wells would probably want to keep him close, so mostly Jay had to wait for news of a sighting and then zip over there to check the area. In this way he started to learn the patrol routes, where Vibe would be and when, but actually talking to him was still a challenge when losing sight of him for too long meant the difference between looking for a costumed crusader and searching the crowd for a kid in a hat.

It was in tracking one of these patrols that he found the proof that he was looking for. The only problem was that he would never, ever use it.

Late one night, about two months after Vibe's debut as a superhero, the Flash stumbled upon him stealing from a Mercury Labs warehouse.

He had been tracking a patrol, waiting for Vibe to come to a deserted street so that he could approach, when suddenly the kid veered off course. Curious, Jay followed but didn't show himself, and Vibe led him all the way to a lot full of warehouses owned by Dr. McGee, which the lab used for storing projects not being immediately worked on. There had been something of a boom in demand for anti-metahuman technology since STAR Labs had made itself the frontrunner with Wells' Metahuman Awareness Apps, so a lot of Mercury Labs projects had been sidelined to make way for the new development program.

Jay had a sinking feeling he knew what was going on even before Vibe blasted the outdoor security camera. He watched in dismay as the kid proceeded to break open the back door to one of the warehouses in the same manner, glancing furtively around before entering. It was all too obvious what he was doing, and that meant Jay had an unpleasant task ahead of him.

Vibe was trying to rob the warehouse, and it was Jay's job to stop him.

When Flash sped inside through the ruined door Vibe was already carrying some kind of metal case, his expression nervous behind his sunglasses as he planted what looked like C4 on a support beam. Planning to cover up what had been taken by destroying the rest then.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," the Flash announced his presence, making Vibe jump, "but I don't think that belongs to you."

Vibe whirled around, one hand outstretched with palm out, his usual gesture for firing a vibration blast. Jay took one reflexive step backwards, but refused to run away; he had to test his theory.

As expected, Vibe didn't attack. Instead he kept his hand outstretched like a loaded gun, ready to fire at any moment, but it was clear that he had no intention of doing so unless the Flash made a move.

"This must feel good for you, huh?" Vibe guessed in a shaking voice. "Catching me red-handed like this."

"Why would it feel good?" Jay wanted to know. "I thought we were on the same team."

"You're the only hero in town again," Vibe replied bitterly, "the only real one, anyway. I'm a criminal."

"You're not a criminal yet," Jay pointed out. "All you did was break into somewhere you weren't supposed to be; teenagers do that all the time. You haven't stolen anything until you walk out that door. I can easily replace the door and camera, and no one would even need to know we were here. It can be like this never happened."

Vibe frowned in confusion. "You would do that?"

Jay nodded.

"Why?"

"Because I know why you're doing this," he explained.

It was hard to tell what Vibe's eyes were doing behind his shades, but the movement of his eyebrows suggested that they had gone wide. "You . . . how could you-"

"I've been where you are," Jay confessed, and Vibe's eyebrows scrunched down in what might have been confusion or disbelief or any number of other things Jay didn't really want to think about now.

A lump formed in his throat as he forced himself to call on the experiences he had tried so hard to forget, but there was no more time for that than there was for jealousy, of any kind.

"Whatever he's promised you, whatever you think you're getting out of this, I swear it's not worth it."

Vibe shook his head. "You don't know what I'm getting out of it," he insisted, gesturing slightly with his outstretched hand.

"I know it's not worth betraying the entire city," Jay said, equally insistent. "They love you, don't-"

"They love Vibe!" the kid protested, almost angry now. "It's him they love, not me!"

Jay frowned. His thoughts whirred at the speed of light as he tried to make sense of that statement, but he was coming up empty.

"You don't want to be Vibe?" he asked searchingly.

Vibe shook his head. "And I won't be, not for very much longer."

"If you don't want to do-" Jay waved his hands vaguely, gesturing to the larger space around them, " _this,_ the whole superhero thing, you don't have to. He can't _force_ you to do this, any more than he can force you to become a thief."

"It's my end of the deal," Vibe said grimly. "If I don't do this, he won't help me, and I'll be stuck with these powers forever."

"You want to give up your powers?" Jay asked, perplexed. "Why?"

Vibe scoffed. "Not everybody has nice, easy powers like you Flash," he said bitterly. "My powers, they . . . hurt me. I can't live with them anymore."

"You really think he's going to let you give them up?" Jay demanded. "You're too useful to him like this. He's stringing you along kid, and he's going to keep doing it as long as you keep letting him."

Vibe hesitated. He looked away, letting his hand droop toward the ground and his fingers curl inward, and it seemed like he was thinking seriously about stopping this right now. For one glorious moment it looked like Jay had actually gotten through to him, but then in one fluid motion he raised his hand and fired a sweeping blast, hitting Jay in the chest and knocking him off his feet to land on his back. Jay could _feel_ himself slowing down, the lightning in his veins dimming from a vibrant crackle to the weakest hint of a spark and then vanishing altogether. His speed was gone.

"Maybe it's a long shot but I have to try," Vibe explained hurriedly, looking panicked and a little like he might actually cry. "Your speed should be back in a few hours and I'm _sorry_ , but I can't let you stop me."

Disoriented from his sudden lack of superpowers Jay struggled to right himself as Vibe ran for the door, but before the younger meta left he stopped briefly with his hand on the door frame.

"Also you should probably leave," he said apologetically, "I don't want you to get blamed for this, and anyway the building is about to blow up."

Watching the Mercury Labs warehouse explode from a barely safe distance, Jay removed his helmet to examine it in the light from the flames. The first time he'd worn it Harrison had mocked it, called it ridiculous and told him he should wear a mask like the vigilante in Starling City. At the time it had hurt more than a cheap tactic like that had any right too, just like knowing Harrison had a new pet superhero hurt even though it shouldn't.

Still, that didn't matter now. There was nothing enviable about Vibe's situation, and misplaced jealousy over a man he had left of his own volition wasn't going to help him help this kid. Jealousy was not something Jay Garrick had time for.

***

Jesse Wells had never really had a crush on anyone. Most of the time she'd been too busy with school, with all of the wonderful things there were to _learn_ , for little things like crushes and first kisses and holding hands with boys. For the majority of her school career she'd been surrounded by people who were older than her and yet not nearly as smart as she was, so there had never been any particular person who had caught her eye. Indeed, for a long time she had thought that maybe the whole dating thing just wasn't for her at all.

In this way, when she finally decided that 'the whole dating thing' maybe _was_ something she wanted to try, she found herself in college, with no romantic experience whatsoever, surrounded by people who thought she was some kind of hyper-intelligent infant.

It wasn't easy being seventeen and halfway through college when one was trying to learn how to socialize properly for the first time. Whenever she tried to talk about herself, even in the most self-deprecating terms, people always thought she was trying to show off. Most of her attempts at flirting went unnoticed, or resulted in the recipient getting far too frisky with her as a result. Surprisingly not even the people who were studying the same things she was wanted to talk casually about their chosen fields, and for some reason most of them seemed to hate the very things they were going to college for.

This was all compounded by the fact that there simply wasn't anyone very interesting at her school, or at least no one that she found particularly interesting. There had been one boy, while she was still a fifteen year old Freshman, who she had found at least aesthetically pleasing and who had seemed to like her, but he had almost immediately dropped out of school leaving Central City College devoid of interesting people.

More interesting were the scientists who worked at her father's lab, but if her classmates saw her as an infant then the STAR Labs employees thought she was some kind of embryo. Granted a very valuable embryo, and most of them were at least tolerant of her presence for the sake of their boss being in a good mood while she was around, but not a specimen any of them wanted to handle themselves. She supposed it was for the best; the youngest of them were still ten years older than her, which would make it both very creepy and technically illegal.

Based on all of this evidence, for quite some time Jesse believed there simply wasn't anyone in Central City who was both her age and remotely interesting.

Then Vibe, Central City's Latest and Greatest Superhero, gave his first official statement to the press.

“I'm here because of Dr. Wells,” Vibe told a reporter coyly, and then he looked at the camera, so it seemed almost like he was speaking directly to Jesse. “I wouldn’t be who I am without him.”

Jesse had been following the news of Vibe just as avidly as the rest of the city. The defeat of Zoom was no small matter, and had been a source of celebration for weeks after the fight. Jesse had gone to more parties than she could remember to mark the occasion, more than one of which had been thrown by her father. His exploits in the ensuing two months continued to impress, and the media were a lot better at covering him than they were at covering the Flash. Jesse had more than once found herself thinking it was a bit unfair the way that some people seemed to have forgotten the Flash in favor of Vibe, and after everything he'd done for the city, but evidence would suggest that the Flash didn't like this much attention anyway.

Once she found out that Vibe worked for her father though, interest became something closer to fascination. He was her age, clearly very mature, and what was more he had managed to impress the greatest tech entrepreneur of all time. Dr. Harrison Wells simply did not work with boring people. That was a fact.

"Why didn't you mention that you were working with Vibe?" she asked, at dinner the night after Vibe had talked to the press.

Her father looked up from his food, mischief sparkling in his eyes. "He wants to keep his identity a secret, Jesse," he reminded her. "I couldn't tell just anyone."

"You could tell _me!_ " Jesse insisted, trying not to laugh at his impish expression.

"No special treatment," her father shook his head, but he was smiling.

Jesse took a sip of her water to stop herself from giggling. "Seriously though," she said once she'd composed herself, "what's it like working with  a superhero?"

"Very dull," he confessed. "Honestly I'm not doing anything for him; he builds his own tech and he has the superpowers, so mostly I'm just signing the checks."

"So he works at STAR Labs?" Jesse guessed.

"Maybe," her father shrugged noncommittally. "Not anywhere you have access to anyway."

"How did you meet him?" was her next question.

"He came to me, actually," he told her, then took a bite of his food. He chewed, swallowed, then went on. "He asked me for a . . . small favor."

"What was it?" Jesse asked eagerly.

Her father shook his head. "I suggested a more permanent arrangement instead. Hence, our current alliance."

"Is money the only thing he gets out of your 'alliance'?" Jesse prodded.

"The pleasure of my company," he added, smiling slyly.

"So you _do_ meet with him regularly!" Jesse concluded triumphantly. "Where?"

"Why all the questions?" her father laughed. "Are you writing a school report or did my life just suddenly get a lot more fascinating now that you  know it includes crime-fighting, in a roundabout way?"

Jesse shrugged theatrically. "Maybe I just want to know what you see in him," she said elusively. "I mean, you don't like the Flash, so-"

"The Flash is a coward," her father snapped, but at her disapproving look his face softened. "Vibe is a far superior model."

"Model?" Jesse laughed. "They're not cars dad."

Her father laughed too, but said nothing more on the subject of superheroes that evening.

Still, Jesse now had an important piece of information: her father did meet with Vibe regularly.

Dr. Harrison Wells was not a man who did a lot of aimlessly wandering his home city soaking up the atmosphere. He didn't go to coffee shops or restaurants unless he had some kind of business engagement, and he rarely patronized the arts. For the most part, he went straight to work and then came straight home. What this meant for Jesse was that one of those two places, either at work or at home, was where he was having regular meetings with his good friend the Savior of Central City.

Well, she knew those meetings weren't happening at home.

When she got a text from her father that he'd be working late that night it wasn't too suspicious of her to pop in on him unexpectedly for lunch, and not a soul in the building was going to remark on her comings and goings, to her father or anyone else. So, if anyone noticed her coming and not going, they kept their mouth shut about it. After saying goodbye to her father she found the nearest broom closet and hid inside, then settled in for a few long hours of playing on her phone until the rest of the staff cleared out.

She supposed the biggest flaw in her plan was the possibility that Vibe might not be coming in through the normal entrance, but lucky for her it seemed like he hadn't been hiding some kind of wall-scaling power he could use to enter through the office window. Some time after most of the lights had been turned out the elevator dinged to announce its arrival, and Jesse immediately darted out of the closet and closed the door behind her before the elevator doors could slide slowly open to reveal the teenage superhero within.

The elevator, and by extension the broom closet, was on the other side of the building from her father's office, so she had trusted that distance to make sure the conversation went uninterrupted. Jesse was forced to call this plan into question when Vibe took one look at her and let out an inhumanly high pitched shriek.

"What!" Jesse asked in surprise, a little louder than she'd meant to. She hurriedly lowered her voice. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"What are you doing here?" Vibe demanded, clutching at his heart, but Jesse held a finger to her lips and made a desperate shushing noise. She glanced nervously in the direction of her father's office, but she didn't hear the sound of him stomping down the hallway to see what the noise was about.

Vibe took a deep, steadying breath. "What are you doing here?" he repeated, softer this time.

Jesse was at a loss. This was not going at all according to plan. Vibe was meant to step out of the elevator and see her leaning casually against the wall, beautiful and young yet clearly as much a part of the adult world as he was. She would exude a maturity that matched his own and he would realize that he wasn't the only teenager in Central City wise beyond his years. They would share an instant connection, two seventeen-year-olds who had none the less left childhood far behind, and they would both know with a comforting certainty that they were no longer alone.

Instead Vibe looked panicked, and she felt panicked, and they were staring at each other like two scared kids hoping against hope that the teacher wasn't going to come around the corner and spot them hiding behind the playground shed.

"I . . ." she stalled, trying to think of something to say. "You work with my dad, right?"

"You're Jesse," Vibe realized, and this seemed to relax him a little.

Jesse smiled, exhaling some of her nerves. Of course he already knew who she was; being the daughter of Harrison Wells meant that most of Central City at least knew _of_ her, and her early graduation from high school meant that the entire scientific community had one eye on her to see what revolutionary scientific breakthroughs she would achieve in following her father's example. She was exceptional, just like Vibe.

She shrugged, going for nonchalant. "Does my dad talk about me then?" she asked, as though they were any other two people who just had a mutual acquaintance.

Vibe, however, looked down. "No," he told her, glancing up at her and then hurriedly returning his eyes to the floor. "We, uh, don't talk about personal stuff much."

"That's him alright," she confirmed, releasing a nervous exhalation that was meant to be a fond laugh. "All business, right?"

"I guess," Vibe said noncommittally, turning his attention to a nearby wall now that he'd given the floor a thorough examination.

"You must be very professional," she noted, "to have not even asked about his personal life."

 _To have not asked about me,_ she mentally added. If she was lonely just being the smartest teenager in the city, then being a teenage superhero on top of being brilliant must be the loneliest experience in the world.

Vibe shook his head, still not looking at her. "Our . . . relationship is a bit . . . unconventional."

"I guess working with the greatest tech entrepreneur of all time is an adventure in itself," she speculated, smiling as she remembered something that might give her a nice little way in. "Then again, it's probably not as impressive for you, what with you being a tech genius yourself."

Jesse had expected him to preen at the compliment, as she would have done, but somehow this seemed to make Vibe even more nervous. "What's he been telling you?" he wanted to know. "Why is he talking about me to you?"

"Why shouldn't he?" Jesse asked, frowning in confusion.

"I just . . ." Vibe trailed off. He was at least looking at her now, but he regarded her warily, like he thought she might be about to explode at any moment. "I just . . . thought he might like to keep this . . .  separate, you know?"

It occurred to Jesse suddenly that he might be worried for her safety, given that he was a superhero with a lot of superpowered enemies. That was, after all, one thing he had that she didn't. "I can handle myself," she assured him quickly. "I've been a CEO's daughter my whole life; there's never been a shortage of wackos targeting us."

She smiled in what she hoped was a flirtatious way. "You don't have to worry about me, I'm use to danger."

"Right," said Vibe dubiously. It was impossible to tell what his expression really was with his sunglasses in the way, but he didn't look convinced. "Look, I have to go see Dr. Wells, okay?"

"You still call him Dr. Wells?" Jesse asked teasingly.

"What else would I call him?" Vibe countered.

Jesse shrugged. "It just doesn't seem like this should be so formal," she explained with mock unconcern. "My dad thinks very highly of you, from what he's told me, and that's a rare thing. If I had my way we'd be practically family by this point."

Something about that statement seemed to make Vibe deeply uncomfortable. He shied away from Jesse, pulling his hands up to shield his chest, and she didn't need to see his eyes to know that his expression was somewhere between confused and unsettled.

"I have to go," he said simply, then without waiting for an answer he finally made to move past her on his way to her father's office.

"Oh," said in surprise, "um, well, talk to you later?"

"Sure," Vibe tossed the word over his shoulder, then disappeared around a corner.

It wasn't an award winning attempt at flirting, Jesse admitted to herself as she made her way down the stairs and out of STAR Labs, but she thought it hadn't been bad for a first try. Rather than leaving her enthused however, her encounter with Vibe had left her very concerned. She couldn't help but think he didn't look _well_ , like he wasn't eating enough, or perhaps wasn't sleeping. He'd certainly looked tired, exhausted even, and he'd been nervous and jumpy like he'd spent too much time on edge recently. It wasn't hard to imagine why he spent so much time on his guard, and it felt almost like a betrayal but she couldn't help but wonder if maybe he might be in a bit over his head.

He was only one person after all, and as far as she knew his powers didn't come with super-stamina, like the Flash's. Nor did she think he had any kind of healing factor, and if he was taking time off between fights to recover properly from even minor injuries then the frequency of his appearances in the news certainly didn't show it. She refused to think that his age was any kind of factor, but his _experience_ as a superhero was still relatively little. It was entirely possible he simply didn't know how to pace himself, and was burning through his energy reserves at a much faster rate than he could comfortably maintain.

This wasn't about age. Vibe was as mature as any adult, and his work ethic reflected that. But even adults didn't do everything by themselves, she reasoned, and it wasn't like Vibe was the only superhero in Central City. Jesse would go to the Flash, ask him to reach out to Vibe and suggest some kind of partnership. He had more experience so he would naturally give the best advice, and he could pick up some of the slack to give Vibe time to rest.

Maybe the Flash would tell Vibe that a partnership had been Jesse's idea, and then Vibe would come to rely on her too. Maybe he would come to trust her enough to tell her his real name. Maybe she could persuade him to take off his sunglasses, so that she could see his eyes.

Jesse officially made up her mind: her next move was to find Jay Garrick and ask him to help Vibe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the core motivation of all my main characters is basically loneliness. they are sad lonely puppies that need to combine into a superfam. it needs to happen.


	4. The Ties That Bind

Not for the first time in his life, Jay came to the conclusion that he really ought to stop wanting things.

He’d _wanted_ to know why he had such a bad feeling about Vibe, and he’d gotten evidence to suggest that he was working with Harrison Wells.

He’d _wanted_ proof one way or the other if Harrison was taking advantage of the kid, he’d gotten the sight of Vibe robbing a warehouse.

He’d _wanted_ a source of information on Vibe and Harrison’s movements, and now here stood Jesse Wells, in his apartment, where she had _broken in,_ asking him to use her as an excuse to team up with Vibe.

Like father like daughter he supposed.

“It just makes sense,” she insisted, pacing back and forth across his living room with a single-minded focus that was eerily familiar, “for the two of you to work together. He’s talented, yes, but he’s inexperienced. Even the quickest of students still need a teacher, and you’re the only one in Central City who’s qualified. Nobody has to be a sidekick, obviously you’re both perfectly capable on your own, but if you could just work together for a while I’m sure you could learn a lot from each other. You just need a way in is all, and since he _is_ working for my family it’s only natural that I make the introduction-”

“Kid,” Jay cut her off firmly from his position by the door, causing Jesse to whirl around in surprise, as if she’d half forgotten that he was there. “Slow down.”

“That seems a little ironic coming from you,” Jesse huffed.

Jay pinched the bridge of his nose. It was just a reflex at this point: he couldn’t get migraines anymore and it had absolutely no effect on the blood flow to his brain, so all it really did was express to Jesse that she was currently being very frustrating.

Jesse didn’t seem to mind.

“Were you even listening?” she asked in obvious annoyance.

“You’re a little hard to ignore,” Jay informed her tersely.

“So what do you think?” Jesse wanted to know, looking nervous and determined and so ridiculously young. Not that Jay thought she would have  responded well to the sentiment.

“I think you have a completely imaginary situation completely figured out,” he replied. “I wish you the best of luck with it.”

“Excuse me?” Jesse said, staring at him in wide-eyed disbelief.

“Listen, kid-”

“My name’s Jesse,” she interrupted, scowling.

“Jesse,” he conceded, “you don’t understand what’s going on here, and believe me, you don’t want to.”

“What do you mean?” Jesse demanded. “I understand perfectly. It makes sense-”

“It makes sense to _you_ ,” Jay corrected. “That doesn’t mean it makes sense from an objective standpoint.”

“In what possible way could this _not_ make sense?” Jesse wanted to know. “You’re a more experienced superhero, he’s a less experienced one, you should share your knowledge. There’s no reason you shouldn’t work together!”

“You’ve definitely got the theory part of it down,” Jay told her, “but that doesn’t mean its applicable in practice.”

“Well, why not?” Jesse asked, clearly teetering on the edge of losing her patience.

Jay took a deep breath, wondering how to put this. “You’re working off an incomplete picture,” he tried to explain as he took off his army jacket and hung it on the coat rack by the door. “Have you considered, for example, that his powers cancel out mine? If we fought on the same field we pose a danger to each other: if he hits me by accident I’m helpless, and he’s at risk while he’s protecting me.”

“Is that all?” Jesse asked, somewhere between relieved and smug. “That’s all the more reason for you two to train together. Eventually there will come a day when you _have_ to work together, and you’ll encounter exactly that problem. You should start working on it now, so you’ll be ready when you need to be.”

Obviously believing she’d won the argument, Jesse fell dramatically into his favorite chair and crossed her arms, grinning in triumph.

“Very neatly concluded,” Jay praised dryly, finally managing to take off his helmet and hang that up as well

“So you’ll do it?” Jesse pressed.

“Oh, no,” Jay told her, feeling a sense of satisfaction that was probably highly unworthy of him at her affronted look, “but it was very well said.”

“What else is there then?” she demanded, clearly ready to argue with him until she got her way.

Thankfully, Jay had a little experience with that kind of attitude. He crossed the room to the old, slightly battered sofa and took a seat while Jesse sat up to resume the debate.

“Well,” Jay began, smiling a little, “one piece of practical information that you’re missing is that I’ve already asked him.”

Jesse gaped at him. “What?” she sputtered. “What did he say?”

“He said he wasn’t interested,” Jay paraphrased. A gross misrepresentation of his last meeting with Vibe, but it would do for the purposes of dissuading her.

“That’s ridiculous,” Jesse waved his words away, and for a moment he thought she was going to accuse him of lying before her next sentence made his blood freeze. “I’ll talk to him-”

“No!” Jay interjected sharply, making Jesse turn to look at him in surprise. “You stay away from that kid.”

Talking to Vibe would put her too close to this, Jay thought. Closer than she already was anyway, and there were things this little girl did _not_ need to know about her father. Not until it was absolutely necessary, not until Harrison was safely locked away and couldn’t get to her. He didn’t think Harrison would _hurt_ her -- not Jesse, not ever -- but there was also Vibe to consider, and Harrison _would_ hurt him. There were just too many risks involved. It was best that she stay out of it.

Jesse, apparently, disagreed.

“He’s not a kid,” she told Jay venomously, “and neither am I. I can handle myself, I’m not afraid of getting involved with superheroes. If my dad can do it then so can I.”

“Your dad _shouldn’t_ do it,” Jay hedged. He told himself that she didn’t need to know precisely why. “And neither should you.”

“If anything I’m safer being close to you,” she argued, “all the better for you to protect me. And you’ll be able to protect me, and everyone else, much more efficiently if you _work together.”_

Jay shook his head. “Your logic is flawed on so many levels. As someone who’s done this for a while, let me tell you that being involved with a superhero makes things more dangerous, not less.”

“You can’t just say that!” Jesse insisted. “You have to back it up. Tell me how you know that.”

They were straying towards dangerous territory now. She was coming perilously close to the questions for which he had no good answers, and he knew he needed to dissuade her from this line of inquiry altogether.

In retrospect, the worst thing he could possibly have said was, “You know, whether or not you believe it, not everything that goes on Central City is your business Miss Wells.”

He knew he’d made a mistake when he saw Jesse’s mutinous look. “Just because you don’t know how to trust people doesn’t mean everyone keeps those kinds of secrets,” she snapped, as if she knew anything at all about Jay’s situation. She was baiting him, and he knew it, and just like the last time someone in her family had baited it stung even though it shouldn't.

“Vibe keeps his identity a secret from everyone,” Jay countered, trying to keep his cool. “By that standard I have absolutely nothing to hide.”

“He tells some people,” Jesse insisted, “the people who matter. My dad knows. They’re partners, they work together, and just because you don’t play well with others-”

“Now who’s making baseless claims?” Jay interrupted. He stood up and began pacing, determinedly at normal speed but unable to contain his agitation. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Then tell me!” Jesse exploded, jumping up from the armchair to stand before him. She shoved him once in the chest, hard, and Jay let himself be forced back a step more out of surprise than anything else. “Tell me the truth!” she demanded. “I’m so sick of being kept out of the loop, I just want to know why no one will tell me anything!”

At that point, Jay lost his temper. That much he was willing to admit. Rather than answer her, rather than tell her the she was seventeen and in college and in over her head and a thousand other perfectly valid reasons why she should stay out of this, Jay let his speed carry him and his stupid broken heart to his bedroom like a child. He grabbed his copy of _Principia Mathematica_ and snatched the slip of paper he’d shoved inside from between its pages, then darted back into the living room and shoved it under Jesse’s nose.

Jesse blinked at the photograph in Jay’s hand for several long moments. Then she gently took it from him, holding it carefully as she sank back onto the armchair. Jay remained standing, but turned away so he wouldn’t have to see as her face went from confusion to shock to the numb kind of dull pain that comes with a sudden, deeply-felt betrayal.

Jay knew the feeling.

“I have more,” he said, after almost a full minute of silence from her. “In case you don’t believe that one.”

“You . . . and my dad,” she said hoarsely. “You were . . . involved?”

“We were together,” he told her swallowing the lump in his throat so he could speak. “A couple, boyfriends, whatever you want to call it. We were engaged, there for a little while. Or at least I thought we were.”

“He never told me,” she whispered, more to herself than to him.

“He didn’t want you to know,” Jay explained. “Don’t take it personally; he didn’t want anyone to know.”

“Why?” Jesse asked desperately, looking up at Jay. Her eyes were wet.

Jay swallowed, swallowed all his guilt and all his pain and all the things that had stopped him from saying this out loud for the past six months.

“Because he was using me,” he told her gently, and he wasn't sure if he was trying to be gentle with her or himself. “He knew about the Particle Accelerator leaking dark matter, he knew from the very beginning, and he was using me to cover it up. I helped him bury evidence, bury everything that would implicate him in criminal negligence.”

Jesse looked back down at the photograph. “Why did you do it?”

“I thought-” Jay’s voice broke, and he forced himself to stop and clear his throat before continuing. “I didn’t know exactly what he was having me do. He told me someone was trying to frame him, some former employee -- Rathaway -- was just trying to make it _look_ like the Accelerator was responsible for the metahumans. That I was helping. That I was saving Central City.”

Jay took a deep, steadying breath. He told himself Jesse didn’t need to know all the sordid details of their affair, no matter how much he wanted to confess them. This wasn’t her problem. This wasn’t her burden to bear. She didn’t deserve to have the Flash unload his baggage on her when she was dealing with a betrayal of her own.

“I drew the line when he asked me to steal from Mercury Labs,” he finished, forcing himself to end the story there. “I figured out his game, but Vibe hasn’t yet. That’s why he can’t work with me; Harrison won’t let him.”

Jesse was silent for a minute, then, “I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t expect you to,” he assured her simply.

“Oh, not about your relationship,” she corrected, sitting primly upright and dabbing delicately at her eyes with her sleeve. Composing herself.

“Jesse-” Jay began uncertainly.

“Or about the Accelerator,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “I’m sure he thought he was doing the right thing, but you leaving will have given him some perspective. He’s bitter, I know that much, but he’s just stubborn. Vibe is his attempt to do better.”

Jay shook his head in exhausted disbelief. “Do you have any evidence to support any of that?” he wanted to know.

“No,” Jesse admitted, “but I’m going to get some.”

“Now, wait a minute-” Jay tried, but Jesse cut him off again.

“My dad wouldn't do what he did to you to someone my age,” she explained simply. “He would never do that. What he has with Vibe, their deal or partnership or whatever, is honest. He’s trying to make amends, but he’s doing it without admitting he was wrong, and that’s not the way to go about it. I’ll prove to you that he’s really trying to help Vibe, and then you can tell Vibe what you told me, and then my dad will have to apologize. Then all three of you can move forward and work together.”

“Jesse,” Jay shook his head again, “it’s doesn’t _work_ like that.”

“It _will_ ,” she insisted, voice cracking slightly, as she stood up determinedly from the armchair. “I will _make_ it work like that.”

Jay opened his mouth to say . . . something, but he couldn’t find the words he was looking for before Jesse had left his apartment.

***

STAR Labs was the centerpiece of Central City. It was the linchpin of the greater scientific community, providing breakthroughs every year it would have taken other labs decades to achieve. What they had discovered using the Particle Accelerator had changed the world. It had made everyone's lives better. It had saved Central City.

That was what Jesse reminded herself over and over as she tried to make sense of what Jay had told her. It wasn’t just hubris that had led her father to do what he’d done, he’d been thinking of Central City. He’d weighed the risks against the rewards and decided that turning on the Particle Accelerator was the best choice. He’d been wrong, obviously, and now he was too proud to admit it, but he couldn’t fix his mistakes from inside a prison cell. He was trying to make amends for what he’d done, first with the Flash and now with Vibe.

Of course he couldn’t have worked with someone as good-hearted as the Flash and not fallen for him. She could appreciate, even in her distressed state, that Jay had tried to spare her feelings; obviously he was a good person, and her father would have responded to that. Jay’s good heart, however, would have made him too idealistic to understand the choices her father had been forced to make. Their personal relationship and their working relationship had gotten in the way of each other, and both had ended badly. It was inevitable, but not irreversible.

In that picture her father had looked . . . happy. Clearly Jay had made him happy, and vice versa. He could have that back, they could _both_ have it back, if only she could show Jay what her father was too stubborn to tell him. He was trying to be better. By helping Vibe, he was trying to be better.

Now all she had to do was prove it.

She was getting inordinately familiar with the inside of the broom closet on the floor where her father’s office was located, but Vibe hadn’t technically seen her come out of it so she thought it was safe to reuse the hiding place. No one said any more about her failure to leave the building after having lunch with her father than they had last time, and so she found herself once more in the building after hours, alone but for her father and the person currently riding upstairs in the elevator. This time when she heard the little _ding_ that signified Vibe’s arrival she stayed in place, and it was only after she heard him round the corner that she carefully slipped out of the closet and followed behind him. She knew this floor like the back of her hand, and so was able to stay out of sight until Vibe reached her father’s office. Then she crouched down behind the the wall next to the door and listened.

“It’s good to see that you’re alright,” came her father’s voice, soft and soothing. Just like when he spoke to her. “I know having to fight Pied Piper again must have been difficult for you.”

“I redesigned the cell,” Vibe told him. “He shouldn’t be able to get out again.”

“Yes I saw that,” her father replied, sounding pleased. “Excellent work, as always Cisco.”

Cisco. So Vibe’s name was Cisco. Jesse filed that information away for future reference and kept listening.

“So, um,” Cisco said nervously, and Jesse could almost picture him looking at the walls or the floor in anxiety. Maybe he was just a nervous person, she thought. All the more reason for him to have a partner. And friends.

“So?” her father prompted gently.

“About . . .” Cisco trailed off.

“Do you need something, Cisco?” asked her father teasingly, and Jesse couldn’t help but smile. Clearly her father’s relationship with Cisco wasn’t dissimilar to the one he had with her. He was _fond_ of Cisco, and this was yet another reason that Jesse couldn’t help but think they should be friends. Complete with Jay they could almost make an odd little family, especially since Cisco didn’t seem to have anyone else.

“I had a vision today,” Cisco answered her father’s question, making Jesse frown in confusion. Vision? “It was bad. I . . . I need-”

“I know what you need, little hero,” her father gentled, but there was something odd about the way he said it. He sounded protective, like he wanted to take care of Cisco, but there was also something  . . . else. Jesse couldn’t place it.

“Jesse’s out with friends tonight,” her father recited the lie Jesse had told him to excuse her absence from dinner, “so if you want to go back to the apartment and have your . . . _treatment_ , there, then that’s an option.”

Treatment? Visions? Suddenly Jesse wondered if perhaps Jay had been more right than even he realized. She had not been looking at the full picture, but neither it seemed had he. Was Cisco ill in some way? Did he have more powers than either of them were aware of? Maybe the reason he didn’t want to work with the Flash was something Jay had never considered: self-consciousness perhaps, or bravado, or even the simple need for more control over a battle than having to plan around another combatant would allow.

Back in the office, Cisco was giving his answer. “Yes, I’d like that, but . . .”

“Yes?” her father asked curiously.

“Have you been talking to her about me?” Cisco wanted to know.

“Jesse?” her father laughed. “Of course not. Why would I tell her? She doesn’t need to know about this.”

Jesse scowled. She was _really_ getting sick of being left out of the loop.

“I don’t know,” Cisco confessed, “only I sort of ran into her the other day, and she seemed like she . . . knew stuff. About me.”

There was a pause, and Jesse waited eagerly for her father’s reply. She hoped fervently that she might get an answer to why no one wanted to tell her anything.

“What did you say to her?” asked her father, seeming tense.

“Nothing,” Cisco said hurriedly, “I didn’t tell her anything. I thought you’d want to keep this separate.”

“Good boy,” her father said. “You were correct, I’d rather she was left out of this, for obvious reasons.”

Sadly, the reasons _weren’t_ obvious to her. Damn.

“I thought so,” said Cisco, sounding relieved.

As they left the office and headed for the elevator Jesse hid underneath the desk used by the secretary until they rounded the corner. Thankfully neither of them even considered that they weren’t the only ones in the building, and her father didn’t even think to lock his office door as he left. Jesse was bursting with questions, and she knew precisely where to get the answers. If her father was working on anything important, it would be in his audio logs.

Dr. Harrison Wells was a man with a particularly busy brain, and when it was whirring at a mile a minute he didn’t have time to sit down and write or type out what he was thinking. As a consequence of this he preferring dictation, which eventually just became audio logs as a sort of voice recorded journal. It was where he documented all his important projects, all his particularly interesting theories, and anything he wanted put on record. Any documentation of his work with Vibe, of their deal, of their _partnership_ , was bound to be in there.

Quickly Jesse sat down at her father’s desk, powered up his computer, and pulled up the log from the day after Vibe defeated Zoom. She wasn’t expecting much, as this was only the earliest possible log where Cisco might be mentioned, but she was surprised to find that the earliest log on that date had been made late in the evening, long after the lab had closed.

She clicked on it, and immediately her father’s voice came frenzied and excited through the speakers.

" _A solution to the situation with the Flash has presented itself,_ " he began, and Jesse frowned. Wouldn't he called Jay by his name, if they'd been . . . but of course if that was a painful thing to contemplate he would probably want to distance himself from it. She kept listening.

" _This new superhero, this_ Vibe _, came to see me here in STAR Labs. His real name is Cisco Ramon, an emancipated minor who graduated high school at 15 and now at 17 is studying to be an engineer. He really is remarkably talented, and far more useful than he knows. Already his effortless capture of Zoom has taken all the city's attention off the Flash's little_ stunt _at the press conference, and he seems to be quite the budding inventor. According to the information I've gathered he created the cell the CCPD are using to contain Zoom, as well as every containment unit in the Metahuman Wing of Iron Heights. I've managed to convince him to put those skills to work for STAR Labs._ "

Jesse sat back in her father's desk chair, grinning slightly to herself. It wasn't as if she hadn't know that Vibe -- Cisco -- was exceptional, but hearing how much her father obviously liked him made her all the more eager to get to know him. She couldn't imagine why her father wanted to keep them separated; surely if anyone could understand either of them it would be each other. The only explanation she could think of was the same one that Jay had brought up, but people knew that Vibe worked for STAR Labs, so she couldn't see why she was in any more danger being Vibe's friend than being Dr. Wells' daughter. She'd have to bring that up when she discussed this with her father later.

The recording, however, was far from over.

" _His age isn't a problem,_ " said her father's voice, " _and indeed provides a significant advantage. He has no friends that I can discern and has distanced himself from his family, so he has no support network to lean on and is best described as affection-starved_."

Her father's concern for Cisco was-

" _This should make him particularly easy to manipulate._ "

Jesse paused the recording. The use of the word 'manipulate' sounded ominous, and she sat there in the dark, silent office for several minutes trying to puzzle out what he could mean by it. He had probably just used the wrong word, she decided at last. He'd been searching for another -- 'persuade,' maybe, or 'guide' -- and had forged on when he couldn't find it so he could get his thoughts out before they slipped away amidst the miasma that was the inside of his head. He knew what he had meant, and the rest of the recording would reveal that.

" _For the moment my best way in is his visions,_ " her father's voice continued when she hit play again. " _He has premonitions, which he calls 'vibes,' whenever another metahuman uses their powers. It seems that they cause him considerable pain, and he wants my help getting rid of them._ "

Jesse had to pause the log again to consider this new piece of information. She could understand not wanting to live with terrible, unpredictable pain, but ignoring the good he could do for Central City seemed wrong. Maybe that was why he was working so hard? Did he want to make the city as safe as he could make it before giving up his powers? It felt wrong to ask him to live with that pain, and yet equally wrong to let him turn his back on his responsibility to Central City.

She shook herself. Her father, doubtless, had already determined the correct answer. She would see what he thought.

" _It's out of the question, obviously,_ " the recording of her father said with perfect confidence, and Jesse relaxed somewhat. The next sentence, however, made her stomach drop. " _He's far too useful, especially now that I may need a way to dispose of the Flash, but the promise of a cure makes for an excellent bargaining chip until I can persuade him that his best and only option for survival is my help._ "

Jesse paused the recording again. It was unmistakably her father's voice, using the same placidly cheerful tone he always used at home, but still she had never heard him talk like that. Even when he was yelling at his employees it was frustration at their incompetence that made him upset; he wasn't upset now though, he was perfectly calm and yet still talking about 'disposing' of people and 'survival' like they were perfectly normal subjects he dealt with everyday. He sounded calculating, and cruel, and not like himself at all.

She had to know more. She had to know where that darkness had come from. There had to be an explanation.

" _I have until he grows impatient waiting for the cure to make him emotionally dependent on me,_ " he continued, just as casually as before. " _He likely has little experience with being cared for, so the first step is set him up with an apartment and see to his basic needs. He responded well to praise and comfort-touch; I'll continue with those whenever possible. Some of the same tactics I used to control the Flash should work on him as well, so I'll see how he responds to advances in that direction in a week or so, once he's had time to settle into his-_ " a small chuckle, " _-new circumstances._ "

Jesse sat, clenching her hands in her lap, determined to keep listening. To see this through to the end.

" _I have little doubt about his inability to resist: his work at the lab, college coursework and extracurricular activities as a vigilante -- once I persuade him to continue -- should leave him with little energy to argue with me. Still, he could be dangerous if I were to lose control, so it's probably best that I come up with some way to neutralize his abilities if I absolutely must. It would be a shame to lose that power, but if the worst should happen I'll need a fail-safe. I'll begin work on a formula tomorrow._ "

That was where the recording ended.

Had he said that final sentence two minutes ago Jesse would have been ecstatic. Here was the proof she needed, the proof that her father really was helping Vibe, that he was holding up his end of the deal and giving the young superhero what he needed. Now, with the context that the rest of the recording provided, there was only one possible conclusion.

Jay had been right. He'd been right about her father, about the true nature of their relationship. He was right about what was going on with Vibe, that he was being manipulated and used. Suddenly a thousand small things came back to her, taking on a new, sinister tone where they had previously seemed quirky and harmless. Her father referring to the Flash and Vibe as 'models' as though they were machines. His refusal to tell her anything about his new partner. His determination to keep her 'separate' from that world, and everyone in it that might need help.

Her help.

She needed to find that neutralizing agent. There was no way her father hadn't finished it by now, and if Cisco was accepting 'treatments' from him those were likely doing more harm than good. She needed to find the cure and get it to him, before any of this went any further. Still, there was also one more thing she needed to do.

With trembling fingers, Jesse ran a search for the words 'particle accelerator.'

" _Today provided a rather optimistic development,"_ came her father's voice from three weeks ago, sickeningly calm and content in the face of what he'd done. " _It seems that my little hero is a good deal cleverer than his predecessor. While it took Jay Garrick the better part of a year to suspect that I knew the particle accelerator would leak dark matter radiation into the city, Cisco seems to have figured it out some time ago. He had been intending to kill me if I didn't agree to help cure him on the night we met, but by this point he's much too codependent on me to contemplate even telling anyone what he knows. It speaks well to my ability to control him, and it eliminates a potential threat I had been somewhat worried about. I think perhaps Project Cassandra will prove unnecessary, but I'll keep the documentation of my 'attempts' for when I propose that he eliminate the Flash. If he thinks there's no hope for a cure, he'll be far easier to convince that his-_ " a cold, mean little laugh, "-destiny _is to replace Jay Garrick as the hero of Central City._ "

Jesse stopped the recording. There was more, but she had no reason to listen to it, at least right now. Instead she dug around in the desk for a flash drive and copied the two audio files, as well as any other logs containing the words 'cisco', 'vibe' or 'particle accelerator.' Then she went digging through rest of his files, the non-audio records, for any mention of Project Cassandra. The neutralizing agent existed. It had to be somewhere.

***

"We _have_ to give it Cisco," Jesse told Jay, holding up the bottle of cloudy white liquid. They were seated at Jay's kitchen table, where he had insisted they have this conversation after she'd brought the cure to him. This time she'd waited out in the hall rather than just coming straight in; she felt like her family had ignored quite enough boundaries for one lifetime. She had meant for Jay to be the one to tell Cisco he didn't have to listen to Dr. Wells anymore, but she was meeting an unexpected source of resistance.

Jay's conscience.

Jay frowned. "I thought you said you understood what your father's capable of."

"That's _why_ we have to give it to Cisco," Jesse insisted. "He needs this cure; without it my dad will have no way to manipulate him."

"He's spent the last two months cultivating plenty of other ways," Jay assured her, "and believe me he'll use them. It's not worth the risk."

"What risk?" Jesse wanted to know.

"The risk to Cisco," Jay explained. "Harrison said 'neutralize,' not 'cure.' There's no way of knowing what he meant by that."

Jesse fought not to roll her eyes. "He made it to take away Cisco's powers. What else would it do?"

"It's completely untested," Jay argued, "and Harrison doesn't know enough about metahuman abilities to go messing with them like this. That drug, you have no idea what it's going to do."

"My dad might be unethical, but he's good at what he does," Jesse told him firmly. "If he made it, it'll do what it's supposed to do."

Jay shook his head. "It's just too dangerous Jesse."

"We can't just withhold it from him," Jesse pointed out. "He deserves to know it exists, at least."

"So he can get desperate and take it without thinking first?" Jay countered. "He's in pain, he's not thinking clearly. I cannot, in good conscience, dangle a miracle cure over his head when there's every chance it could kill him."

"So, what, just because he's seventeen he's not qualified to make his own medical decisions?" Jesse demanded. "He's an emancipated minor, that means he gets to choose."

"All the more reason not to tell him," Jay concluded gently.

Jesse sat back, fuming. Jay had already made up his mind, and there was no way she was going to convince him to change it. Well, no way except one.

She stood up and shoved the bottle into her pocket, then brushed past Jay on her way to the door.

"Where are you going?" Jay asked nervously.

"The same place I went last time," Jesse tossed over her shoulder. "To get proof."

***

It was indeed the same place she'd gone last time that she went for the proof that she needed, that being STAR Labs after hours. At some point someone was going to notice her hiding out in the same broom closet all the time, so this time she picked a lower floor and a large supply room where she could easily hide among the shelves. She was a little afraid they might lock it when everyone went home, but thankfully security was generally good enough that not many people felt the need to lock anything. When all the lights had gone dark she slipped out, then went to find an empty lab where she could set up her experiment.

Given that no one knew where she was and nobody would be coming to check this place until morning, Jesse wasn't stupid enough to just go through with her plan with no preparation whatsoever. First she found a lab with an EKG machine in the biomedical wing, then gathered an epi-pen and -- due to the fact that this was a dampening agent -- a shot of pure adrenaline as a back-up. It took some trial and error to work out how to hook herself up to the EKG machine, but once she managed it she lined up her materials on a medical tray and opened up the contacts in her phone.

She deliberated for some time on who she should call if this went wrong. The hospital seemed logical, but if she couldn't tell them where she was it would take them a while to find her. Jay was faster than an ambulance, but he had the same problem. Eventually, despite how much it pained her, she brought up her father's contact information. He was able to activate the tracker on her phone from his phone, so he would know immediately where she was, if not what she was doing. He would recognize the Cassandra Serum as well, so he'd know how to treat her. All things considered, good and bad, he was the best choice.

That done, Jesse measured out a dose of Cassandra Serum and, with a single deep breath, jammed the needle into her arm.

For a few moments nothing happened. She didn't pass out or have a seizure, her heart rate didn't spike or stop, and it seemed as if the serum had had no effect whatsoever, as it should have on someone who had no superpowers. Grinning to herself, she picked up the bottle to examine its contents again. There were at least three more doses, plenty left to cure-

Suddenly the bottle slipped from between Jesse's slack fingers, and she had a brief moment of panic before it simply rolled a few inches across the medical tray. She hadn't actually lifted it that high, in fact she'd barely lifted it at all. She looked at her hand, watching her fingers flex slowly. She frowned, trying to speed them up, but no matter what she did they only got slower and slower. She turned to look at the heart monitor to see that her heart, likewise, was slowing down.

Immediately she fumbled the cap off the epi-pen and jabbed it into her thigh, but despite the jolt it sent through her leg her heart rate did not pick up at all. It was getting dangerously slow now, dangerous enough that the machine was loudly announcing its dissatisfaction, and she knew that she had to do something else before it got any slower. She only had one shot of adrenaline and she couldn't afford to waste it, so she picked up the syringe and slammed it directly into her heart.

Unfortunately this did not cause her heart to speed up.

Instead, it stopped completely.

Jesse knew she had only seconds before she lost consciousness. Unless she did something there would be no one here to start compressions, ready the defibrillators, shock her heart back to life. She could not die now: Cisco was still in danger and she hadn't even told Jay where she left the flash drive of her father's audio logs. It felt wrong, but there was only one option left to her, and so with a slight sob she pressed the Call button on her phone.

Her dad picked up on the first ring. " _Jesse?_ " he asked in confusion. " _It's late, where are-_ "

"Daddy," she said hoarsely as her vision began to go dark around the edges. "Help."

" _Jesse? Jesse what's wrong? What's going on? Jesse? JESSE!_ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> special thanks to hedgiwithapen for letting me whine at her while i was writing this. and for the name of the serum, which was her idea.


	5. Stronger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS GOT REALLY DARK! like holy shit i had this planned out but i did not realize just how dark it would be until i wrote it. i know some of you don't like reading smut, so this is a bit complicated, but there's no actual sex. there's just mentions that sex happened in the past and the promise of sex which doesn't go anywhere. sorry if that still skeeves you out, so if you really just don't wanna hear it skip from jay's entrance down to "daddy?" and check the end notes for what happens.

Of all things, it had to be Jesse.

Of all the things in Harrison’s life he could afford to lose. Of all the things he could survive losing. Of all his possessions and every person he’d ever known, of everything and everyone in all the world, the one thing that was in jeopardy just _had_ to be daughter, his joy, his only child. His Jesse.

He could imagine no crueler fate than the one he was now enduring, sitting at her bedside with one of her hands in both of his, hoping and praying that she would wake up. He couldn’t imagine how she’d gotten ahold of the Cassandra Serum, or what had possessed her to inject herself with it. Slamming that shot of adrenaline had likely saved her life, and he shuddered to think what would have happened if she hadn’t thought to do so. She’d be dead. He’d have lost her.

But why had she taken the serum in the first place? How had she even found it? She was not the type of girl to go shooting herself up with things she found lying around, and he’d hidden the Cassandra Serum very carefully _because_ it was so dangerous. Flimsy explanation after ridiculous excuse chased each other around his brain, each one more improbable than the last. In the end there was no earthly reason she should have thought it had anything to _do_ with her, and to have taken it in a secluded location late at night . . . No. She was not that kind of girl. She knew better. But then, why?

It was this powerlessness, this complete inability to do anything, that was eating away at him. He wouldn’t know anything until she woke up, until she could _explain_ , and with no information to work off he had no idea who was responsible for this. Not Jesse, that much he knew; someone else was to blame for this travesty and he _would_ find out who it was. But for the moment he had nothing to go on, and until he had something all he could do was move her from the hospital to a special infirmary in STAR Labs and hire the best medical care money could buy to watch over her using the lab’s superior equipment. All that was left to do was wait for her to wake up.

Harrison hated waiting.

“Will you hurry up!” he snapped at one of the nurses who was checking Jesse’s vital signs. He much preferred to be alone with his daughter, and having a lot of incompetent medical staff buzzing uselessly around like so many obnoxious bumble bees only aggravated him.

“I’m sorry sir,” squeaked the nurse, and wrote something down hurriedly on Jesse’s chart before scurrying from the room. Harrison found the fear he inspired immensely satisfying; if they couldn't fix Jesse they could all just go away.

Once the sound of footfalls faded down the hallway there was silence again, broken only by the rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor. She had flatlined a few times over the last week, nearly taking Harrison’s own heart with her, but so far she had always come back. Now all she had to do was come back to consciousness and everything would be alright again.

Life outside this room ticked by, both it and Harrison indifferent to each other. He'd told his secretary to put whoever she pleased in charge of the lab temporarily as long as they didn't bother him, and the press had been unceremoniously shut out altogether. Vibe had come once to ask if he needed anything, and Harrison had told him that if he wanted to help he could go down to his lab and stay there. No word of or from him had come since then, so for all Harrison knew the boy was still down there. He didn't much care either way.

It was so strange. Two months ago he had been desperate for Vibe's cooperation, ecstatic to see him and greedy for any chance to draw him closer. Now the boy could be dead for all he cared. Everything and everyone he cared about in the world was now lying in front of him, hooked up to a bank of soulless machines that were the only thing keeping her alive. She looked so absurdly peaceful for someone at death's door, and he wanted to grab her and shake her, demand that she come back to him. It wouldn't do any good though. She would wake up on her own or not at all.

"Harrison," said a voice, soft and low, from the doorway.

It took him a moment to place it, and when he did he turned in his chair in shock. It was Jay Garrick standing there, his button-down work shirt open with the sleeves rolled up and his hands in the pockets of his jeans. As ever he didn't seem to understand just what a striking picture he presented when out of his Flash getup, and he stood with shoulders hunched and head bowed slightly as he hovered in the doorway to the infirmary.

For a moment Harrison struggled with the handful of names that rose unbidden to his lips, then finally settled on a terse "Garrick," before going back to looking at Jesse's sleeping face.

He hoped that the dismissive greeting would communicate that Jay was unwelcome here, but Jay didn't seem to want to take the hint. He stepped cautiously past the threshold, then when no alarms rang or security appeared he came farther into the room.

"So this is where you've been," Jay observed, apparently untroubled by the fact that Harrison wasn't looking at him. "For the past _week_ , you've been here. In this room."

"Where else should I be?" Harrison snapped, turning slightly to toss the words over his shoulder but not enough to see Jay's expression.

There was an exhale that sounded like a weak little laugh. "Lots of places," Jay said ambiguously. "The whole city's on edge."

"This is my problem how?" Harrison wanted to know.

"Well their new favorite hero's been missing since you dropped off the face of the Earth," Jay explained lightly. "They're understandably concerned."

"Are they?" Harrison said sarcastically

"They want to know where he's gone," Jay clarified.

"How should I know?" he demanded. He just wanted Jay to leave, so he could go back to watching over Jesse in peace.

Jay however was simply not ready to cooperate with that agenda. "You mean you don't know?" he asked, sounding shocked. "He's under your care-"

"What are you a social worker now Garrick?" Harrison spat venomously. "He's an emancipated minor: he's under no one's care and no one cares about him."

"That's not true," said Jay easily, effortlessly, with that same psychotic idealism that made him think every single solitary life was valuable. "This city cares about him. You care, if you'd just let yourself-"

Harrison stood up so quickly he knocked over his chair, whirling to face Jay and his fresh absurdity. "The only person I care about is Jesse," he snarled, striding angrily over to where Jay stood next to an empty exam table. Not for the first time he was struck by how ridiculously big Jay was, but Harrison was only an inch or two shorter and perfectly capable of shoving him in the chest. "You think you know me, Garrick?" he demanded. "I thought we'd established already that you know nothing about-"

In a single fluid motion Jay had Harrison bent over the exam table, one hand twisting Harrison's arm behind his back and the other one worked into his hair to pull his head backwards. Harrison growled, struggling, but then Jay leaned down and sank his teeth into the skin of Harrison's shoulder, just above his collar bone.

Immediately Harrison's traitorous body went limp and pliant under Jay's. All the fight drained out of him like so much soapy water from a rung sponge, and he let out an undignified breathy sound that he would have been horrified to have made within mere feet of his daughter if she'd been awake. The bright star of pain sent waves of familiar pleasure crashing through him and brought a hundred memories of similar sensations racing to the forefront of his mind, and he honestly couldn't have said how long he stood there with the Flash's mouth inches from his throat.

Jay released his grip with both jaw and fingers at the same moment, and Harrison's head _thumped_ to the table.

"Nothing?" Jay asked conversationally, then licked innocently at the mark he'd left. "Are you sure about that?"

"Ngh," said Harrison intelligently.

Jay huffed out a soft little laugh. "That's what I thought."

He shifted, bringing his hips flush against his captive's until Harrison could feel his erection through his jeans. Instinctively Harrison pushed back, trying to make Jay harder, trying to make him lose some of that ironclad control of his.

Jay was having none of it. He jerked his hips sharply until Harrison was sandwiched tightly between him and table, held immobile by cold steel in front and hard flesh behind.

"What-" Harrison managed shakily.

"Hush," Jay purred, then immediately went to work on Harrison's neck with light kisses and soft nibbles.

Harrison went boneless beneath him, the fingers of his free hand twitching against the tabletop as Jay's talented mouth sent little ripples of sensation radiating out from the point of contact. His scalp tingled as Jay began to massage there with his fingertips, then trailed his kisses up to flutter against the hairline. He was painfully hard, and he wanted to rock back against Jay, feel the answering hardness and the promise of what was to come. Both of them, ideally.

"You remember this?" Jay whispered agains the shell of his ear.

"Yes," Harrison answered reflexively.

"You remember what happens next?"

Harrison did remember what happened next. Next Jay would sink to his knees, open up Harrison's slacks and suck his cock until he was begging. Then he'd stand up, bend Harrison roughly over the table again and finger him to an orgasm that would leave him shaking and oversensitive but nowhere near satisfied. Jay would work him open until he was hard again and then fuck him slow and languid, whispering all kinds of filth into his ears until he was writhing and clawing the tabletop, desperate for the barest hint of friction on his cock. When Jay finally got tired of his begging he'd reach down and bring Harrison off with a single firm stroke, and Harrison would sob out his release as Jay bit his neck and came inside him.

But that had been before. Before Jay found out the truth. Before he learned what he'd really been doing at Harrison's behest. Before he became utterly impossible to control, until he finally found a way to break free of the carefully constructed web Harrison had woven around him. Before he left.

"Yes," he said hoarsely, "but-"

"Do you want it?" Jay asked, in perfect sincerity. "Do you want to have it back?"

Harrison was silent. Of course he wanted Jay back, but Jay had to know that. Half his reason for leaving had been to punish Harrison, alongside his patent refusal to see reason, to admit like everyone else that STAR Labs and hence all of Central City were better off with Dr. Harrison Wells at the helm. Jay knew, must have know, that Harrison would have given a great deal to have him back where he belonged: doing as he was told, taking the reasonable path and generally being the person he'd been before he'd decided to be obstinate.

"You can have this again," Jay murmured into the whorls of his ear. "I can _have_ you over this table, right here right now. I'll make it good; you'll like it."

Harrison's tongue felt thick and stupid in his mouth as he tried to answer, but Jay wasn't done.

"I can come back to work at STAR Labs," he went on. "I can work on whatever projects you want to give me. Even weapons."

Jay had never been willing to work on chemical weapons, he'd always said-

"I can be a hero," he continued, "or not. I can be your pet superhero and tell everyone how great you are. I can give it all up tomorrow to be at your beck and call."

God he'd always hated the Flash, what he wouldn't have given for Jay to just use his powers for personal gain-

"I can be yours again," Jay concluded, nuzzling the shell of Harrison's ear.

"Yes!" Harrison whined, uncaring of how loud he'd gotten. His fingers scrabbled at the exam table, wanting to grab and snatch at the offer before Jay took it back.

"All you have to do, is let the kid go."

Harrison stopped. He stopped scrabbling and struggling and forced his brain to process what Jay had just said. By 'the kid' Harrison assumed he meant Vibe, so then what he wanted in exchange . . .

"Just tell him the truth," Jay pressed on, but his voice sounded less tempting and more desperate all of a sudden. "Just tell him you have no intention to-

"Oh," Harrison cut him off, and his voice dripped poison because he'd honestly never felt so _used_ in all his life. "You are _good_ , Flash."

Jay froze. He stopped purring and just stood there, still trapping Harrison in place but somehow nowhere near in control. Not anymore.

"I should have known," Harrison continued. "There is no Jay Garrick anymore, is there? There's just you, Flash, you and your martyr complex. Except that you wouldn't really be a martyr, would you? You'd just be protecting your own skin."

"What?" Jay asked, in almost genuine-sounding confusion.

Harrison laughed. "You must have figured out what I need him for," he said, a little maniacally, because inside he was trembling with the effort not to come apart. "If I 'let him go' as you put it, I can't use him against you anymore, and then you've got no reason to keep up your end of the deal. You make me give up my best weapon, then you cut and run. Just like you did last time."

"I didn't owe you anything last time," Jay tried to argue. "This time I will. I'm telling the truth: I'll stay."

"I don't know that I want you to," Harrison lied. "I'm not sure I want to give him up. He may not look like much but he's a pretty little thing when he's bent over a desk."

Jay growled. "He's seventeen you psycho!"

"Oh is that what this is about?" Harrison retorted. "You think you're going to make him testify against me? Me, Harrison Wells, the man who saved Central City?"

"I don't care whether he wants to press charges or not," Jay insisted. Falsely, like as not, but Harrison didn't feel like speculating. "But he doesn't deserve what you're doing to him."

"What I'm doing to him?" Harrison asked. "I'm not doing anything, Flash. Nothing he didn't beg me for anyway."

Jay growled again, shoving him roughly against the desk and twisting his arm.

"He makes such pretty noises when I'm inside him," Harrison shouted, uncaring of how loud he'd gotten in his triumph. "You've never made me come so hard I cried, but then again I probably wasn't as tight as he-"

"Daddy?"

Harrison froze. Any trace of arousal withered as icy adrenaline dumped itself into his veins. That voice. It could only be . . .

Jay reared back, leaving Harrison cold and alone bent over the exam table. He pushed himself to his elbows and then his hands, slowly gathering his composure before he turned around. Eventually he managed to stand straight, fixing his clothes methodically as he tried to calm down. He had to present a very specific picture when he turned around.

"Jesse," he said, smiling as he spun to look at her, "you're awake-"

"Is it true?" she cut him off, voice hoarse from disuse and breaking just a little. She was sitting up in bed, staring at him, her eyes wide and fearful.

"It . . " he stuttered, cringing inwardly at the look she was giving him. "Jess-"

"He's my age," she cut him off, voice quavering. "How could you do that to someone who's my age?"

"He's not my daughter," Harrison explained honestly, the only answer that would come to him.

"He's someone's child!" Jesse yelled back, and Harrison flinched.

"Yes, but they don't care," he tried desperately. "I'm the one taking care of him, so I get to-"

Jesse let out a little sob. She squirmed away from him, getting as far away as she could without getting out of her hospital bed, which she likely couldn't do yet.

"Jess-" he said hoarsely, reaching for her.

"Don't touch me!" she screamed, batting weakly at his hands, but he leaned over the bed to grasp her shoulders and pull her toward him.

Then, suddenly, she wasn't there. In a flash of lightning Jay had snatched her right out of his hands, and now the two of them were standing on the other side of the room, Jesse dashing at her tears with her palms and Jay eyeing him warily.

Jay stepped forward. "Harrison," he said gently.

"You!" Harrison cut him off. "Do not touch my daughter! How dare you subject her to this!"

"Harrison, calm down," Jay soothed, walking slowly toward him. He was so condescending, so sure that his clever scheme to turn Jesse against her father -- her family, her only family -- had worked that he wasn't even bothering to pretend that Harrison was a threat anymore.

Well, Harrison could work with that.

As Jay drew closer Harrison reached down under the hospital bed and grabbed one of the anti-metahuman devices -- Boots -- that Cisco had made. Harrison had made sure every room in STAR Labs had at least one, and now he was extremely satisfied with his own paranoia. As soon as Jay was close enough Harrison lunged, latching onto Jay's shirt and snapping the circular device close around his throat.

Jesse screamed as Jay fell to the floor, convulsing from the shock and wheezing as the collar restricted his airway. Without waiting for him to pass out Harrison seized him by the shirt and began dragging his half-limp form toward the door. It was late in the evening, there ought to be plenty of empty labs where he could-

"Stop!" Jesse screeched, running to try and tug Jay out of Harrison's hold. She was no match for him though: Harrison was much taller and much stronger, and he easily pulled the semi-conscious speedster out into the hallway.

"Jesse," he said seriously, taking her firmly by the arm, "I don't expect you to understand this right now, but Daddy has something to take care of."

"No!" she cried, but Harrison pushed her forcefully back into the infirmary and locked the door quickly behind her.

Jay was fully unconscious now, and his dead weight was easier to drag than his flailing limbs. It didn't take long for Harrison to find an empty lab on the next floor up, far enough away from Jesse's screaming that no one would be able to hear it. He locked Jay inside, just in case he was faking, then headed back to the elevator.

As the door closed behind him, Harrison pushed the button for the lowest sub-basement.

***

Harrison wasn't entirely sure what he expected to find in the concrete bunker that had been converted into Cisco's lab. He'd been down there a few times, to check on various projects, so he knew that Cisco had certainly made the most of the space: several worktables scattered with plans and prototypes like so much bric-a-brac, the walls lined with storage shelves, larger projects standing on the floor like modern art pieces and a small set of living quarters in one corner for when Cisco worked late and didn't feel like going home. Harrison had made a token resistance to that addition, insisting that Vibe needed more comfort than this after patrol, but Dr. Harrison Wells had never been one to discourage his employees from working through the night.

Stepping out from the elevator his eyes swept the workplace for signs of his little hero. If Cisco wasn't down here then it would be a simple matter to call him to the lab, but as Harrison's eyes lighted on the cot he saw Cisco curled up under the thin blanket, dozing lightly.

Harrison went to kneel beside the bed. "Cisco," he whispered, shaking the boy's shoulder, "wake up my little hero, I have a job for you."

"Harrison?" asked Cisco sleepily, rubbing his eyes. "You're . . . did Jesse wake up?"

"Yes, I-" a frown creased Harrions's forehead as something occurred to him. "Have you been down here this whole time?"

"You told me to stay," Cisco explained simply, without a touch of anger or self-consciousness, as though it were the most normal thing in the world. "I had a stash of junk food."

Harrison smiled. "Oh my sweet boy," he said, cupping Cisco's face tenderly. "Always so good for me."

Cisco leaned into the caress. "Is Jesse alright?" he asked worriedly.

"She's awake," Harrison conceded, already formulating his story, "but not quite alright."

Cisco frowned. "Was there some kind of permanent damage?" he asked, voice full of anxiety.

"No," Harrison told him, "but she's been hurt."

"How?" Cisco wanted to know, sitting up in bed. "Who could possibly hurt her here?"

"The Flash," Harrison told him, trying to keep the fury in his voice to a minimum, to sound at least relatively calm. "He's hurt Jesse, and he's going to hurt her again. I need you to get rid of him."

Cisco shook his head. "The Flash would never do that though," he said, earnest and confused.

"There's no time to explain," Harrison replied, standing up and offering his hand. "Just come with me. I've locked him in a lab, but if we want to make sure he'll never hurt anyone again we have to take care of him quickly. "

Harrison was glancing at the elevator, half afraid that Jay would simply appear there to contradict his story, so he wasn't looking at Cisco's expression. He turned back, however, at the deadly tone of the boy's voice.

"No," he said simply, then locked his hard eyes on Harrison's face when the older man turned to look at him. "The Flash would never do that."

***

When Cisco had found out Jesse was in a coma he'd felt sick to his stomach. Of course Jesse had been hurt. She'd been hanging around him, hadn't she? Not to mention he'd gone on television and told the whole city that he worked for her father. Really, how she'd avoided getting hurt for as long as she had was the mystery.

But it seemed that she hadn't been injured as a result of some metahuman attack, but rather some kind of drug. The official story was "a bad reaction to some medication," but Cisco knew there had to be more to it than that. He'd tried to ask Harrison about it, but the man had been completely distraught by Jesse's condition, much too emotionally fragile to deal with Cisco. He'd given Cisco the simple instruction to go to his lab and stay there, so that was precisely what Cisco had done. He'd stayed down there, in his fortress of a lab, the entire day, and then had been afraid to leave when night had fallen. What if Harrison needed him for something, and was counting on him being here?

The settled it really: if there was a possibility that Harrison was counting on him to be somewhere then he was damn well going to stay there until he absolutely had to leave. He had basic amenities in his lab -- it was, after all, made to be lived in while working on projects that would required 'round the clock attention -- as well as a small stash of junk food, so he'd simply slept on the cot and ate through his candy and chip reserves while he waited to be called upon.

It took almost a week for anything to happen. He'd been dangerously close to needing to leave, what with the food running out, when Harrison had finally materialized by his bedside one night while he slept. Cisco woke to a hand on his arm, and Harrison's soothing voice in his ear.

"Wake up my little hero," he'd whispered affectionately, "I have a job for you."

This was exactly what Cisco had been waiting for, but he was also conscious that Harrison sounded far less anguished than the last time they had seen each other. Harrison spoke to him in soft tones, caressed his face fondly, called him "sweet boy" and praised his devotion. Cisco hadn't even realized how much he had been craving those words and touches the last week, and he let the older man's soothing presence wash over him before turning his attention to the task at hand.

Exactly what the task at hand was, though, changed everything.

"The Flash," Harrison told him, "He's hurt Jesse, and he's going to hurt her again. I need you to get rid of him."

That was impossible though, and Cisco told him as much. There was no way the Flash would ever hurt Jesse, he had no reason to do so and he had never hurt anyone unless it was to stop them from hurting someone else. Jay was kind, he'd reached out to Cisco when anyone else would have pushed him away, and he would never hurt someone like Jesse. It didn't make sense why Harrison would say that, or why he would insist on it when Cisco told him it was impossible. Unless . . .

"You're lying," Cisco said coldly, glaring up at Harrison. "Why would you lie about something like that?"

Harrison paled. "Cisco," he said, holding up a hand placatingly as he backed up a few steps, "now, listen to me."

"Answer my question first," Cisco bargained.

"Something's happened," he said vaguely, "the Flash has gone rogue. Something must have happened to him, he's completely insane."

"Then we need to help him," Cisco countered, standing up from the bed, tossing the blankets aside as he picked up his goggles from the stack of books he'd been using as a bedside table.

"It's too late for that," Harrison insisted, shaking his head, "I have him contained for the moment, but we need to act now. We have to get rid of him."

"I can contain him until we figure this out," Cisco replied. "I did it with Zoom. There's no reason to hurt him."

"He hurt my daughter!" Harrison shouted, then quickly composed himself. "The Flash is a menace," he went on more evenly, "you don't know him like I do Cisco."

"He said he'd known you," Cisco confirmed, narrowing his eyes. His conversation in the warehouse came bubbling back to the surface of his mind. What the Flash had told him about Harrison. What he'd _warned_ Cisco about Harrison.

The older man looked even more alarmed than before. "Whatever he's told you," Harrison said firmly, "whatever he's said to you, I swear it's a lie. We worked together for a time, yes, but he was the one who betrayed me."

"I don't believe you!" Cisco snapped. "The Flash is a hero! He wouldn't do that, to you or to Jesse!"

"Cisco," Harrison barked, voice suddenly hard. "I'm the one who has been taking care of you. You will listen to me, not him!"

"I didn't need to be taken care of until I met you," Cisco retorted sharply.

Harrison seemed to realize that his stern-disciplinarian tactic wasn't going to work. "Sweet boy," he tried instead, voice switching seamlessly to a soft croon, "why would I lie to you? When have I ever lied to you?"

"I don't know," Cisco said, realizing as he said it that it was true, "when have you lied?"

He took a step toward Harrison, and the other man took two steps back. He was afraid, and Cisco could think of only one reason for that fear.

"What are you afraid of, Harrison?" he asked. "We're both good guys, aren't we? So let's go help the Flash."

"You have to get rid of him!" Harrison yelled, eyes wide and panicked. "It's the only way! You have to kill him!"

Cisco froze, and Harrison seemed to realize his mistake a second too late.

"Good guys don't murder people," Cisco said, low and angry. "They only kill if they have to, to protect themselves or someone else. Not enemies they've already captured. Not in cold blood."

"Cisco," Harrison said carefully. He continued backing away with one hand outstretched, until his back hit one of the worktables. "Listen to me."

With that, he threw the Boot he'd just grabbed off the table at Cisco's throat.

Cisco had designed several different types of Boots. There was the one meant to go around someone's thigh, for captures in the field, and the one meant to go around someone's ankle, for restraint while in Iron Heights. There were ones that needed to be fastened on, and had biometric locks so that only prison wardens could open them. There were ones that could be fired from a sort of canon-like device, and would hone in on the nearest metahuman to attach to whatever part of them it struck first.

And then there was Cisco's latest invention: the Boots that were meant to be thrown by hand.

The thing that all of them had in common, however, was that Cisco's powers would shut them down.

The moment the collar -- for that was how Harrison was intending to use it, as a collar -- fastened around his neck it short-circuited and automatically opened again. It clattered to the floor, and Cisco looked up to see Harrison's shocked and horrified expression. He apparently hadn't known about that little safety feature.

Cisco held up a hand, palm out, his usual gesture for firing a vibration blast. "You shouldn't have done that," he said simply.

Harrison swallowed. "Sweet boy," he said, smiling weakly, "you frightened me, I-"

"Where," Cisco cut him off, "did you put Jay?"

***

Of all the things Cisco expected when he flung open the door to the biomed lab where Harrison had stashed Jay, being ambushed by a flash of white lightning and then pinned to the opposite wall was not one of them.

Cisco and Jesse blinked at each other. "You're not my dad," she observed, after a moment.

"No," Cisco confirmed. "Is Jay alright?"

"I'm fine," Jay assured him, stepping out into the hallway to gently pull Jesse off of Cisco. "Where's Harrison?"

"Downstairs," Cisco told him placidly as he straightened his shirt, "in what used to be my lab."

"Did you . . ." Jesse trailed off, looking a bit worried. "Is he . . ."

"Let's put it this way," Cisco told her, smiling just a little, "I thought it was a good idea for me to disable the elevator and block off the stairway until the cops get here."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SPOILERS: (at the end, so do they really count as spoilers?)
> 
> basically what happens between jay coming in and jesse waking up is that jay offers to be harrison's pet superhero again in exchange for harrison telling cisco the truth about manipulating him and not really intending to help him. harrison thinks that jay is planning to double cross him and so he refuses, but in doing so he reveals that he's been sleeping with cisco within earshot of jesse.
> 
> i'm sorry this chapter was so angsty the next chapter is pick-up-the-pieces time.


	6. Finding Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it's pick up the pieces time . . .

Of all the things Hartley Rathaway had expected from ‘Vibe,’ as Cisco was now calling himself, a midday visit to Iron Heights after three weeks of complete silence was not one of them.

“So _Cisquito_ ,” he said condescendingly into the phone, watching the plain-clothed superhero on the other side of the glass intently, “you finally came to see me.”

“Hi Hart,” Cisco replied, and that more than anything cut deep, because he sounded exactly like he had when they’d been dating. It was such a contrast to the way he’d spoken when they’d fought -- cold and dismissive and utterly devoid of emotion -- that Hartley’s mouth went dry.

He swallowed, and went on. “Are you sure it’s good for your reputation to be seen visiting a supervillain in prison?” he asked, glancing around at the visiting area nonchalantly, as though supremely unconcerned. “Oh wait, I guess it doesn’t matter, because you’re not Vibe at the moment. It pays to have a secret identity, I suppose.”

“I’d be here with or without that Hart,” Cisco told him earnestly, and he looked almost sorry with his sad puppy eyes.

“I was beginning to think I was going crazy,” Hartley admitted, hiding it behind a thick layer of sarcasm. “If you’re not here as a superhero then you must be here as my ex-boyfriend. Nice to know I didn’t dream all the times we-”

“Hart,” Cisco cut him off, voice infuriatingly gentle. “I’m sorry.”

Hartley stopped, staring at him. He had half a mind to stand up and ask to see the prison doctor, to have his cochlear implants checked. Had Cisco really just apologized?

“I should never have let Harrison say you were crazy,” Cisco went on, head bowed so he was looking up at Hartley through his lashes. “It was wrong of me to stand by and let him do that to you.”

Hartley swallowed again. “Harrison,” he repeated, in a weak, reedy voice. “So he got you too, huh?”

“He doesn’t have anyone anymore,” Cisco corrected, and lifted his head a little bit, a new kind of confidence in his voice.

Harltey frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean he’s in prison awaiting trial,” Cisco informed him seriously, “for criminal negligence, manslaughter, attempted murder and statutory rape.”

Hartley’s mind whirred as it tried to shape his thoughts around this new information, but one thing stuck out above the rest: the statutory rape charge. That could only mean . . .

“Cisco,” Hartley whispered, horrified, “oh god, did he-”

“That’s not why I’m here,” Cisco cut him off, and that was as good as an answer. “I’m here because they want you to testify to the criminal negligence charge.”

Hartley felt almost as if he’d received an electric shock as his heart leaped in sudden, violent hope.

“I- I don’t have my evidence,” he protested weakly. “He destroyed all of it, I’ve got nothing concrete left.”

“You’ve got your story,” Cisco corrected, “that’s all we need. We have documented evidence, we just need more witnesses. We cannot lose this case.”

Hartley shook his head in agreement, mouth working uselessly as he tried to answer, but Cisco seemed to take this as a refusal.

“They’re offering you a plea deal, Hart,” he said, a little desperately. “The DA’s going to contact you this afternoon. Plead down to assault and you can walk out of here _today._ All you have to do is agree to testify.”

Hartley nodded frantically, then frowned as a thought occurred to him. “Why are you here then?” he wanted to know. “Why did you come?”

Cisco’s face scrunched up in pain, and he sniffed as though trying not to cry. “To tell you I’m sorry,” he replied, “that you’re not crazy, and that I’m going to get you out of here.”

At Cisco’s words Hartley’s throat closed up. Cisco -- Vibe -- had been so indifferent during their fights, not even seeming phased by all his taunting. Nothing had gotten through to him, no references to what they had, and suddenly Hartley realized just how close he’d been to believing Harrison’s lie himself. He felt a prickling behind his eyes and fought the urge to sniffle, just a little.

He cleared his throat, blinking back the tears that threatened to spill out. “You owe me dinner, you brat,” he said instead, voice shaking.

Cisco smiled, sad but warm. “Of course _Ciervo_  ,” he replied, his own voice shaking even worse than Hartley’s. “Wherever you wanna go.”

***

“So where’s he going?” Jesse asked, as she and Cisco sat on Jay’s couch, eating cereal and watching the news.

Cisco shrugged. “Starling, I think. He said he needed some time, and I don’t blame him.”

“Do you think he’ll come back?” she inquired earnestly, looking anxiously at Cisco. “It seemed like you two really cared about each other.”

Cisco shrugged. “I’m not sure,” he admitted, “I mean, I have his number and we’re still texting, but I don’t know if things can go back to . . . the way they were before.”

“Do you want them to?” Jesse wanted to know.

Just then the commercial ended, and Jesse turned up the volume on the TV again.

“ _\- reporting live from the Central City courthouse, where in a shocking turn of events Harrison Wells has been found guilty of both criminal and civil negligence, twelve counts of involuntary manslaughter, one count of attempted murder and one count of statutory rape. He has been sentenced to life in prison, with a chance of parole only after 25 years._ ”

Cisco turned to Jesse. “You alright?” he asked quietly.

“Yeah,” Jesse said shortly. “I just can’t believe only twelve of those manslaughter charges stuck.”

“I’m seriously,” he insisted, muting the TV again. “We haven’t really talked about this.”

“Are _you_ okay then?” Jesse retorted defensively.

“You’re deflecting,” Cisco informed her coolly, “and he wasn’t my dad.”

“He didn’t try to make me kill someone,” Jesse countered, carefully avoiding any of the other things Harrison had made Cisco do.

Cisco was spared having to answer that by Jay, who chose that moment to speed in without so much as bothering to open the door.

“And here I was thinking I lived alone,” Jay said dryly when he caught sight of them.

“We’ll do the dishes when we’re done,” Jesse said innocently, giving Jay her best puppy dog eyes while Cisco joined in the display.

Jay shook his head, laughing softly as he took off his jacket and helmet. “I though your emancipation was finalized after your dad’s arrest,” he said gently. “I understand crashing here during the trial, but the house is yours now.”

Jesse set down her bowl on the coffee table as Jay went to collapse in his armchair. “Yeah, about that.”

Jay frowned. “What?”

“So, living here as long as I have,” Jesse began, “I’ve come to the conclusion that your place is kind of run-down.”

“Hey!”

“And the lease on Cisco’s apartment is about to run out,” she continued as if Jay hadn’t spoken.

“Plus my old place has been rented out to someone else already,” Cisco put in helpfully.

“Right,” Jesse nodded to him, “so I think that the only logical thing to do is for the two of you to move in with me.”

Jay blinked at her. “What?”

“It just makes sense,” Jesse insisted, echoing her sentiment from all those weeks ago. “The house is way too big for one person, it’s creepy living there all by myself, and you’re the only two people I trust. Neither of you have a place to live-”

“A-hem,” Jay coughed pointedly, gesturing at the apartment around them.

“A _better_  place to live,” Jesse amended, “and there’s more than enough room. You can keep teaching me to use my speed-”

“You’re a very quick study,” Jay pointed out, “I think you’ve got the hang of it.”

“-and you can keep teaching Cisco to be a superhero.”

Jay couldn’t really argue with that one. Cisco was about to graduate from college, but he’d be moving on the graduate school next, which would mean he’d be balancing even more challenging coursework with his job at the CCPD  _and_  his work as a superpowered vigilante. He was still very young, and to leave him to fend for himself at this critical stage couldn’t help but feel wrong.

By Jay’s troubled look, he seemed to agree.

“It just makes sense,” Jesse repeated.

“But it doesn’t feel right,” Jay rubbed the back of his neck. “To take down Harrison is one thing, but then to move into his vacated house? It makes me feel like some kind of usurper.”

“Oh please,” Jesse rolled her eyes, “if anyone _I’m_ the usurper. I testified at the trial, same as you, and the house and the lab defaulted to  _my_ ownership. It’s mine to do with as I please and I want the two of you to live there.”

Jay sighed. “I’m not going to get my way on this, am I?” he asked wearily.

“I’d imagine you’re not going to get your way on a great many things from now on,” Cisco speculated cheerfully.

Jay shook his head, then shrugged. “When do we move in?”

Jesse grinned. “Now, obviously!”

***

“You have . . . turtles?” Jesse asked, standing beside Jay next to the large but long-unused fish pond behind the house.

“I had a tank in my room,” he explained. “You never went in there, and thank you for that by the way.”

Jesse watched the handful of small terrapins scoot slowly around on the banks and paddle lazily through the water. Jay’s placid smile as he watched them explore their new home in the pond was a little infectious, and before she knew it Jesse realized she’d been standing there watching the little guys for several minutes.

“They seem to like it here,” Jay broke the silence at last.

“I’m still hung up on the fact that the fastest man alive keeps very slow animals as pets,” she admitted.

“I like to watch them,” Jay confessed. “They’re not in any hurry. They have nowhere to be. They’re turtles; they do things in their own time.”

“That they do,” Jesse conceded.

“Also they’re rescues,” he added, as an afterthought. “I take them in when their habitats get destroyed. I’m part of a program.”

Jesse struggled not to laugh. “So, you’re telling me that the fastest man alive _rescues_  very slow animals and keeps them as pets.”

“Everybody has to have a hobby,” Jay said solemnly.

Jesse considered this for a moment. “Yes they do,” she agreed. “Also, I thought of something to get Cisco for his birthday.”

***

“You got me a dog?” Cisco asked in some confusion, as he took in the sight of the large Newfoundland puppy sitting primly in the front hallway, an over-sized yellow bow around its neck.

“Wrong!” said Jesse, with an unsettling degree of cheerfulness. “I got you a service dog!”

Cisco raised an eyebrow at her. “I know I wear sunglasses all the time, but you do realize I’m not actually blind, yeah?”

“Not that kind of service dog,” Jesse corrected. “She’s a third generation seizure dog. From what I can tell your vibes seem to be similar to an absence seizure, which means she should be able to sense them coming.”

“You wanna add another ‘S’ to that sentence?” Cisco wanted to know.

“Oh just give her a name,” Jesse groused.

Cisco knelt in front of the dog and the two of them looked at each other. She was clearly still a puppy, but she was a Newfoundland puppy and the top of her head came almost up to the bottom of his rib cage. She sniffed at him, once, then immediately broke her disciplined pose to throw herself into his arms, barking excitedly. The two of them sat there cuddling fiercely for a moment while Jay and Jesse looked on, and when the puppy finally calmed down Cisco stood but kept her wrapped in his arms.

“Her name is Floof,” he said, completely deadpan. “She’s my new best friend and I love her.”

Jesse clapped, grinning broadly.

Jay studied Floof contemplatively. “Do you think she can really sense the vibes?” he mused.

Jesse looked at Cisco. “There _is_  one way to find out.”

One of the many methods by which Harrison had been keeping Cisco compliant, they discovered, was manipulating his visions. It turned out that he hadn’t upgraded Cisco’s goggles but rather tampered with them, and they were the reasons his visions had gotten so much worse while working at STAR Labs. Dopamine, as it turned out, was a trigger not an inhibitor, which explained why Cisco had experienced such a violent vision while flushed with triumph from his fight with Zoom. Harrison’s . . . _treatments_ , as Cisco had begun referring to them, hadn’t helped either.

Jesse and Jay had built him a new pair of Vibe Goggles, which so far had worked to restrain his visions. They had kept Harrison’s pair though, which Cisco had dubbed the Terror Goggles, just in case the vibes ever became necessary again.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Jay reminded him as he took out the Terror Goggles and eyed them warily.

“I want to,” Cisco replied, voice firm if not quite stable.

“We’ll be right here,” Jesse assured him stoutly.

Floof yipped as if to say she would be right there too.

Cisco lay down on his bed, Jesse sitting next to him and Floof on his other side, Jay standing beside the bed and looming protectively over them all. Carefully he took off the Vibe Goggles and set them on the bedside table, then after a quick glance at Jesse he replaced them with the Terror Goggles.

He awoke to Floof whining in concern, licking his face and barking at Jesse and Jay as if to tell them to _do_  something.

“Well I’d say that answers that question,” Jay observed, smiling.

Floof barked at him, as if to say she didn’t see what there was to smile about.

“Good dog,” Cisco praised, and she licked his face again worriedly. “Also we should probably go stop Dr. Light from robbing that bank.”

In two flashes of lightning, one yellow and one white, the Flash and Jesse Quick suddenly stood by the bed.

“Don’t worry,” Jesse told him, “we got this one.”

***

“Snafu!” came the sound of Jesse’s voice from the kitchen.

Immediately Jay was at her side. “What?” he demanded. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Jesse said excitedly, peering into an open cereal box, “nothing’s wrong at all. In fact everything’s perfect!”

Jay stared at her. “But you said-” he paused, frowning. “Actually, what did you say?”

In answer to his question, Jesse reached down into the cereal box and pulled out a large white rat.

“A rat?” Jay asked incredulously.

“ _My_  rat,” Jesse corrected. “His name is Snafu the Second, and I thought he must have left while I wasn’t allowed in the house. But here he is!”

Jesse cuddled the rat -- Snafu -- close to her chest, both of them making little squeaking noises of contentment.

Jay continued to stare. “You have a pet rat? Wait, this is your _second_  pet rat?”

“Mhm,” Jesse hummed. “His father was Snafu the First. I rescued him from STAR Labs. He kept messing up the experiments by reacting in abnormal ways, so they were going to cut him open to see what was wrong with him.”

“You do know scientists dissect lab rats all the time, right?” Jay wanted to know.

“Not when I was 11 I didn’t,” Jesse admitted, “or at least it seemed a lot crueler at the time.”

She switched to petting Snafu’s head with one finger, which he seemed to enjoy immensely.

“Fair enough,” Jay conceded. “So, how’d you get Snafu II?” 

“Rats don’t live all that long,” Jesse explained, “so eventually Snafu started getting less . . . Snafu-ish. Then he disappeared for a while, and I was absolutely inconsolable for about a week, but then he came back and he had a baby rat with him.”

“So, Snafu II,” Jay concluded for her.

Jesse grinned. “Snafu II.”

***

“Are you sure all this is necessary?” Jesse asked as Jay set a third plate of potatoes -- roasted this time, along with mashed and fried -- amidst the cornucopia of other dishes laid out on the dining table.

“What do you mean?” Jay asked in genuine confusion before zipping back to the kitchen for a plate of crescent rolls. “It’s Christmas.”

“There’s enough food for like ten people here,” Cisco argued, none the less eyeing the roast chicken hungrily.

“Wrong,” Jay informed him, “there’s enough food for two speedsters and a kid who once lived off doritos and twizzlers for a full week.”

Cisco grumbled but didn’t argue the point any further.

Instead he reached down to pet Floof, who was lying across his feet with Snafu nestled in her fur, both of them content in the knowledge that the leftovers from the delicious-smelling meal going on above were theirs as long as they didn’t interrupt. Floof had taken to her job as Cisco’s service dog with admirable gusto after that first vibe, and he rarely went anywhere without her anymore, her small wriggly body and pillow’s worth of fur squirming into even the smallest of spaces to claim the place beside him. She and Snafu had taken one look at each other and decided to be best friends, so as long as Jesse and Cisco stayed together -- which was most of the time -- Snafu was content to ride around on Floof’s back, making a nest for himself amidst the long fur.

“A year ago I never would have believed I could eat this much,” Jesse mused, staring at the contents of the table in mild astonishment as Jay uncorked a bottle of sparkling cider, and then another two.

“Your metabolism’s different than it was last Christmas,” Jay reminded her. “You need a lot more calories just to stay on your feet, and it’s a lot easier to end up with nutrient deficiencies. Technically you should be eating like this every day.”

“I could never eat like this everyday,” Cisco speculated. “I’d miss pizza too much.”

“The more things I can make you eat that don’t come in boxes the better,” Jay retorted as he filled Cisco and Jesse’s long stemmed glasses with cider.

Ever since moving in Jay had taken it upon himself to make sure the two of them ate properly, and with Jesse’s new metabolism that was no small task. Perhaps out of necessity -- or just a lot of pracitce -- he was a surprisingly good cook, and the eating habits of two relatively unsupervised teenagers were enough to make him claim the kitchen as his domain permanently. Of all the things that Jay was bitter about from the time Cisco spent under Harrison’s thumb, that week in the bunker seemed to rank somewhere around the criminal offenses, and he seemed almost preternaturally conscious of Cisco’s protein intake.

But Cisco didn’t really want to think of that week right now. Right now there was food on the table, real food, and it would be as delicious as it was filling. Right now there was an enormous Christmas tree twinkling merrily at them from the next room, and snow was falling steadily outside. Right now he had a dog at his feet who’s job it was to keep him calm and premonition-free. Right now Jesse was sitting next to him, and Jay was sitting across from them, and all was right with the world.

Right now, he was home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in case you were worried about the terrapins, as i was when i woke up the morning and reread what i'd written last night, they hibernate during the winter so they're fine during the christmas episode.
> 
> special thanks to hedgi for talking endlessly about these parts with me while i was writing all the angst.


End file.
